TOTP Rewind – the 90s | My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 15 OCT 1999

It’s mid October 1999, I’m 31 years old and have been working for the same record shop retail chain (Our Price) for nine years. The impending Christmas trading period will be my tenth on the trot and the thought of that is exhausting. I’m also wondering if I might be ageing out of the job – was working in a record shop a young person’s game? Most of the songs in the Top 40 I was now not just failing to connect with but openly hating on some cases.

I’d also been living in Manchester for nearly the whole of the 90s and, as much as I loved the place, it could be a harsh city at times. My wife and I started to talk about the possibility of moving away and of doing something else altogether. To this end, I actually started applying for jobs outside of retail. I attended a recruitment exercise with the bank First Direct in Leeds but I didn’t perform very well on the day unfortunately. I then turned my attention to paediatric nursing and, around the time that this TOTP was broadcast, went to a careers day in Harrogate but realised whilst I was there that I didn’t really have the right level of enthusiasm to pursue it. Eventually, I would find a way out of both Manchester and record shops but that’s for a future post. For now, I was at least thinking seriously about starting a new chapter whilst still selling CDs and cassettes of music I mostly disliked to the Great British Public. They probably all ended up in landfill sites.

Our host for this one is Jayne Middlemiss and it’s the final leg of the Top Of The Pops On Tour project which is in the Time & Icon club in Swansea. Just like all other venues on the tour, it no longer exists and neither should it with a name like that. Not quite as bad as that which I frequented in my teenage years in Worcester – Images On Glass – but still very poor.

We start with Eurythmics who, not having been near a TOTP studio since 31st August 1989, are onto their second consecutive appearance with “I Saved The World Today”. What was the reason? Well, they were back, back, BACK (as Smash Hits used to say) with a new album called “Peace”, their first in ten years. This week Annie and Dave have a full band behind them as opposed to the acoustic set up they employed last time. It’s a testament to the quality of the song they both versions work equally as well. The album was toured with all profits going to Greenpeace and Amnesty International with a special promotional concert aboard the former charity’s Rainbow Warrior II. All of this seemed to indicate an agenda behind the duo’s decision to reunite (quite possibly most forcibly coming from Lennox) that if they were going to do it, then some definable good must come from it. Did they save the world? No. Did they achieve their objective? I think so.

In my last post, I rather unnecessarily banged on about who was the first Spice Girl to release a solo single. I’m not sure I came to a definitive answer. Thankfully, there doesn’t exist any such tangled mess about solo careers as far as I can tell when it comes to New Kids On The Block and let’s be fair, we needed five ex-NKOTB solo stars like Nigel Farage needs an enquiry into his receiving of a £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire. Not that none of the five members of that boy band decided to go it alone. Three of them released solo material but only one gathered any traction or success. Jordan Knight was the big heartthrob in NKOTB (well, he was my younger sister’s favourite anyway during her brief dalliance with them) and he is the only one to have a solo hit in the UK which he achieved with “Give It To You” when it went to No 5 in our charts. Now, I thought this was hopeless but it seemed to get mainly favourable reviews at the time. To me, it sounded like a Janet Jackson track that hadn’t been mixed properly or even played at the wrong speed. The fact that it sounded like Janet Jackson at all shouldn’t have been a surprise as it was put together by her erstwhile producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis but surely “Give It To You” doesn’t reside in the pile marked their greatest ever records. It’s that staccato rhythm that niggles rather than intrigues me.

Jordan does his best to sell it in this performance but when he does his little, twirling dance moves for the first time, the reaction of the studio audience feels almost patronising in a “ah, look at that old fella still trying to be down with the kids”. I could be wrong about that of course. Knight’s album failed to sell at all in most territories – presumably it wasn’t helped by the inclusion of a cover of Prince’s “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”. Who thought that was a good idea?! The other two of his band mates to release solo material were Danny Wood who has seven (SEVEN!) albums listed in his discography though tellingly none have any chart stats listed against them and Joey McIntyre who had one Top 10 hit in America and then a whole bucketful of nothing. So what happened to the rest of them? Do you really want to know? No, nor me.

From one McIntyre to another as we move seamlessly from Danny of NKOTB (or T’KNOB if you will) to Natalie Renée McIntyre aka Macy Gray who, like Eurythmics earlier, was also making her second consecutive TOTP appearance. Now apparently Macy hadn’t been keen on her record company releasing “I Try” as a single because she just couldn’t hear the song’s hit potential. That got me thinking about other cases of artists not appreciating which of their songs were the obvious single choice.

Off the top of my head, The Human League famously didn’t want Virgin to release “Don’t You Want Me” as they thought it would ruin their career – it was the best selling UK single of 1981 and that year’s Christmas No 1. Then there’s Radiohead who objected to the release of “Creep” from their debut album “Pablo Honey” after US College radio play forced Parlophone to rerelease it after it initially flopped. The band feared one-hit wonder status but they had a further 16 Top 40 hits and have been going for 40 years now. Finally, Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross is notoriously poor at selecting singles and when asked for his choice of song to promote the band’s “When The World Knows Your Name” album went for the title track. Their record label Columbia overruled him and released “Real Gone Kid” – it is their highest charting single of original material.

Compared to Eurythmics, it felt like The Charlatans had only been away from the show for a couple of months but in truth it had been almost exactly two years since they’d last been on. Their last album “Tellin’ Stories” had been a huge success hitting the No 1 spot and going platinum to become the band’s biggest seller ever. All of this was achieved against the backdrop of keyboardist Rob Collins dying in a car crash part way through recording.

The album and the loss of their fellow band member drew a line in the sand. Firstly, the group’s contract with Beggar’s Banquet came to an end (it was actually fulfilled by the release of Best Of album “Melting Pot” in 1998) and they subsequently signed with Universal. Secondly, a new direction was pursued with follow up album “Us And Us Only” which had a country/folk/roots slant supposedly influenced by Tim Burgess’s love of Bob Dylan. Although it peaked at No 2 on the charts, it sold a third of both “Tellin’ Stories” and “Melting Pot”. I have to say that I’m not sure that I know “Us And Us Only” at all other than by its cover artwork. Is that because the singles taken from it weren’t big hits compared to those of its predecessor or was it just that we didn’t play it in the Our Price store I was working in? Probably a bit of both. So, 27 years later, what does lead single “Forever” sound like (to me)? My initial thoughts are that it’s good but it’s hardly an obvious single is it? Certainly the double length album version that I listened to makes more sense in all its psychedelic glory. In conclusion, it was a tad confusing. Still, compared to the next song on the show, it’s literally a colossal classic.

1999 had already given us some of the worst hits imaginable, many of which not only tried our patience but also challenged the status quo of whether they could even be defined as music so mind numbing were they. Then came the ultimate “Hold my beer” moment from Ann Lee who pulled off the seemingly impossible by giving us a record that was not just poor but actually a poor man’s Vengaboys. This was a new low on the shit-o-meter. “Two Times” is so infantile, so insubstantial, so inane that it seemed inconceivable that anyone would buy it and yet it was a huge hit all over Europe. Never mind hating yourself for liking it as suggested by Jayne Middlemiss in her intro, an intervention by all friends and family should have been immediately staged for anyone who was even caught just humming along to it. It can’t even make up its mind – is it two times or three times!

Who was this person who wrought havoc across the continent with this vile tune? Surprisingly, Ann Lee was a Sheffield lass born Annerley Emma Gordon (see what she did there?) who’d moved to Italy in the late 80s and released some solo singles to little recognition. Until “Two Times” hit, her biggest claim to fame had been being credited as one of the co-writers for Corona’s huge 1994 Eurodance smash “Rhythm Of The Night”. However, when I googled her, the first result I got was for Ann Lee the 18th century founding leader of the Shakers movement, later changed to the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing after her death. The Shakers worshiped by ecstatic dancing or “shaking” hence their name. They also composed thousands of songs consisting of syllables and words from unknown languages, the musical equivalent of glossolalia or speaking in tongues which were composed of a single melodic line with no harmonisation. Yeah, you can see where I’m going with this can’t you? As alien as all of that sounds, I think I’d rather listen to Ann Lee the Shaker’s music than “Two Times” by Ann Lee from Sheffield.

After his spectacular re-emergence with the six times platinum “Older” album in 1996, George Michael followed it up with the even more successful Best Of “Ladies & Gentlemen” which was the second biggest selling album of 1998. All of that success left one rather obvious question – what to do next? George’s answer wasn’t exactly out of left field. A covers album seemed like a bit of a fudge to me but in fairness to him, the choice of songs on it wasn’t hackneyed. Rather than instantly recognisable songs, George went mostly for old jazz standards for the album “Songs From The Last Century” with the odd, more contemporary track thrown in like “Roxanne” by The Police. The strategy worked well enough with good sales though not stratospheric. It was his only album release of any description not to get to No 1 and sold a quarter of the preceding Best Of. Its fortunes might not have been helped by the fact that the decision was taken not to release any singles from the album whatsoever.

So why were we seeing George perform “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” on this TOTP then? Well, it was all to do with the charity event NetAid which was an anti-poverty initiative with the aim of reducing third world debt. It seems largely forgotten now, wiped from the collective consciousness but it had some huge names behind it from the world of music and there were not many bigger than George Michael. This clip comes from the London NetAid concert at Wembley Stadium on October 9, 1999 where George performed a set including “Father Figure”. “Freedom! 90” and, obviously, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”. One of the most well known songs of the Great Depression of the 1930s , it is based on a Jewish lullaby and has also been recorded by Bing Crosby. As a vehicle to display the maturity and diversity of George’s voice it’s perfect. As a song to listen to over and over, to my ears, it is not. Maybe I’m just a victim of the era I grew up in but it’s very plodding and hard to get through.

What I did notice though is how far George’s image had changed since his Princess Di hair of his peak Wham! days and designer stubble, leather jacket and jeans look of his “Faith” persona. Dressed in slimming black, with sharp cut yet tousled hair, shades and facial hair (but definitely not the aforementioned designer stubble), this was George Michael as authentic artist and no mistake.

From Bing Crosby to Fred Astaire…just like with The Charlatans earlier, James were back with their first studio album for two years with the intervening time punctuated by the release of a Best Of. Also just like The Charlatans, the only thing I can recall about said album (“Millionaires”) is the cover artwork – to be fair, that huge pig was pretty memorable. There’s another Charlatans parallel in that the album was recorded against a backdrop of band uncertainty with infighting and tensions never far from the surface.

The second track released from it was “Just Like Fred Astaire” (lead single “I Know What I’m Here For” didn’t warrant a TOTP appearance) and although it’s not exactly laid back, it’s certainly a less frenetic song than some of their back catalogue. Not one of their best in my opinion but a good song without doubt that craps all over most of its chart peers. I like its lyrical idea that love is a disease though it’s not quite as good as Laurie Anderson’s idea that language is a virus from outer space. Meanwhile, when Tim Booth sings “I’m losing my hair”, he couldn’t have been more prophetic. Talking of prophetic and indeed Laurie Anderson, check out these lyrics from “Language Is A Virus” which foretell the coming of reality TV by well over a decade:

“Well, I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see
‘Cause everybody on the island was saying:
Look at me!”

Songwriters: Laurie Anderson, 1986

Watching this performance back, I’m struck by the amount of guitarists up there on stage. I counted four which even allowing for a bass player and lead and rhythm guitarists, still leaves one extra. Still, I’m no musician (I can strum a few chords at best) so what do I know?

Eiffel Trifle (or whatever they were called) have been deposed from the top by the latest release from Britney Spears…ha! Well, you could have been forgiven for believing “Genie In A Bottle” was by Britney as you couldn’t talk about the actual artist behind it – Christina Aguilera – without mentioning her Mickey Mouse Club co-star alongside (Jayne Middlemiss certainly couldn’t). It was a fair comparison I think, not just for their shared showbiz backgrounds but also because of their out and out pop sound that was undercut with deliberate sexual overtones in the lyrics. Ah yes, those lyrics – they were certainly suggestive with lines like “My body’s sayin’, “Let’s go” and “You gotta rub me the right way”. Then there’s Christina’s look, all midriff and leather trousers. There seemed little doubt about the angle that was being persued here.

That’s not to say Christina’s success was all about image. Her debut hit was a quality pop song that cut through – its topping of the charts in 21 countries bears witness to that. From this beginning, she carved out a long career that has seen her described as a pop icon, gay icon, diva, sex symbol and “Voice of a Generation” (yeah, not sure about that one). All she was missing was to score a title winning goal that would generate a commentator cry for the ages…”Agulieraaaaaaa!”

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Eurythmics	I Saved The World Today	No
2	Jordan Knight	Give It To You	You can have it back thanks! No!
3	Macy Gray	I Try	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	The Charlatans	Forever	Nope
5	Ann Lee	Two Times	Never
6	George Michael	Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?	N/A
7	James	Just Like Fred Astaire	Nah
8	Christina Aguilera	Genie In A Bottle	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002w1qy/top-of-the-pops-15101999

TOTP 08 OCT 1999

Posted on 2 Days Ago by 80stastic

Looking at the running order for this TOTP, I’m struck by the quality of it which is the best it’s been for quite some time. What am I talking about and have I gone mad? Well, there’s the return of the Eurythmics after a decade away for a start plus a cover version that was as unlikely as it was interesting. Added to that the first appearance of a soul singer with a very distinctive voice and the Pet Shop Boys who were usually good value. Usually. However, what is most noticeable is the lack of nasty, 90s dance tunes on the show with only one falling into that category. Granted it is the No 1 record but in these 1999 repeats, I’ll celebrate any small wins I can. Our host is Jamie Theakston and our TOTP On Tour location this week is the Dome II nightclub in Birmingham which is now the O2 Academy.

A quick bit of admin before we start. In previous posts, I’ve been disparaging about the quality of some of the acts that have been in these tour venues which usually numbered around four with the other slots filled by either a promo video or pre-recorded appearances either filmed at the pre-renovation work Elstree studios or some other location. However, all but the No 1 act seem to be in the Dome II nightclub in person this time which include some pretty big names. Lucky Brummies.

We start with the song holding at No 2 this week – “S Club Party” by S Club 7. Now although the group had a squeaky clean image – they had their own kids TV show after all – I did notice a suspect lyric in their hit which is:

“Hoochie mamas, show your nanas”

Songwriters: Hallgeir Rustan / Tor Hermansen / Mikkel Eriksen / Hugh Atkins

Erm…whatever could they mean? Well, AI explains the line like this:

Hoochie mamas: A slang term that originated in hip-hop culture, usually referring to women who dress in a flashy, provocative, or overtly sexy manner.

Show your nanas: “Nanas” is British and Australian slang for grandmothers.

Because it is British pop slang, the phrase isn’t meant to be taken literally. S Club 7 was just trying to rhyme and create a high-energy, party atmosphere by telling the party girls in the crowd to get loud alongside the older, grandmotherly figures. It basically translates to: “Women who want to party, get loud and bring your grandmas, too!

Really?! “Women who want to party, get loud and bring your grandmas, too!” That translation puts me in mind of that scene from Life Of Brian when Brian is caught writing anti-Roman graffiti by a centurion who tells his that Latin grammar is all wrong – “People called Romanes they go the house?”.

The Can’t Stop The Pop website gives a more literal explanation in its article on the song by saying it translates as “Women of low morals, show your vaginas” but explains that can’t have been the intended meaning though the alternative “Women of low morals, show your grandmother” wasn’t much better. Maybe S Club 7 weren’t as innocent as we all thought.

And so to the aforementioned Pet Shop Boys and what would be their final single of the 90s. “New York City Boy” would be their 20th such release of the decade and the second track taken from their “Nightlife” album. The chart fortunes of those 20 singles were a mixed bag. Nine of them went Top 10 (including a No 2) but there were no chart toppers. By comparison, the 80s yielded four No 1s. Of those other eleven 90s hits, eight peaked between Nos 12 and 15 which shows a definite consistency but also a lack of those absolutely huge hits. Neil Tennant infamously said that he knew the duo’s “imperial phase” was over when “Domino Dancing” only entered the charts at No 9 in 1988. Those words would also ring prophetically true into the 90s.

As for “New York City Boy” itself, it’s a completely extravagant disco anthem which was inspired by and written as a tribute to the Village People. In that respect, it fulfilled its brief. However. Its lack of huge chart success (it was one of those ‘consistent’ singles peaking at No 14) was possibly due to the fact that Neil and Chris had already been down this route six years prior when they covered the actual Village People with their version of “Go West” which had delivered their biggest hit of the 90s. So why go there again? Apparently, it had been the idea of producer David Morales (who incidentally had produced the first Pet Shop Boys single of the 90s “So Hard”) and Neil and Chris certainly followed through on that theme with this performance. Sailor-outfitted backing singers, a Native American with traditional headdress, a man with butterfly wings and, bizarrely, a…more mature lady shall we say in a checked dress who doesn’t seem to know why she’s there or what she’s doing. Who was she?

Oh, and there’s a continuation of the “hoochie” theme with this lyric:

“The street is amazing, the hoochies unreal”

Writer(s): Neil Tennant, Christopher Lowe, David Morales

Do you think the Pet Shop Boys intended its usage to have quite the same meaning as S Club 7? Somehow I can’t quite see it.

It’s that soul singer with the distinctive voice next as Macy Gray makes her TOTP bow. Appearing from seemingly nowhere, Macy (real name Natalie Renée McIntyre) went to the same elementary school as another singer who would adopt a stage name – one Brian Warner who would become Marilyn Manson though they didn’t know each other. As Jamie Theakston says in his intro, Macy rarely spoke as a child – she didn’t learn to hold a conversation until her 10th birthday – so embarrassed was she by her voice. However, she took up singing whilst at the University of Southern California after agreeing to write songs for a friend and the intended vocalist failed to show. Signed by Atlantic Records whilst singing in jazz cafes, she was later dropped in the middle of recording her debut album but was subsequently picked up by Epic Records who would release her debut album “On How Life Is”. After her first single “Do Something” failed to make the Top 40, her second release “I Try” was a huge sleeper hit becoming the UK’s 20th best selling single of 1999 despite never getting higher than No 6 in the weekly chart. Look at these numbers for proof of its longevity:

10 – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 7 – 7 – 6 – 9 – 11 -11 – 15 – 13 – 16 – 15 – 22 – 27 – 38

That’s four and a half months on the Top 40. On the back of that profile, her album would achieve huge commercial success going four times platinum in the UK and it was a similar story in the US. “I Try” would win a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (quite the irony given her childhood misgivings about her voice) whilst Macy would collect two BRIT Awards for International Breakthrough Act and International Female Solo Artist. And yet, despite releasing ten albums during her career, I would struggle to name any of her songs other than “I Try” – is it the same for you? Admittedly, those ten albums suffered from diminishing returns sales wise (albeit with some good critical reviews) but even so.

A parallel film career whilst also contributing songs for soundtrack albums kept her profile high but in my head, I can only picture Macy in late 1999. I should perhaps have taken more interest as I really liked “I Try”. Her performance of it here with her stooped physical stance puts me in mind of Ian Dury or John Lyon though both their postures were due to medical reasons – Dury contracted polio and Lydon spinal meningitis when they were both aged seven. When I eventually left my job in record shops after nearly 10 years, I chose three songs to play on the shop stereo to go out on. One was “My Way” by Frank Sinatra for obvious reasons but the other two were “MacArthur Park”* the Richard Harris version (I really can’t explain that choice!) and “I Try” which was probably just because of the timing of when I left but it will always remind me of that life event.

*What links Macy Gray to the Pet Shop Boys? “New York City Boy” samples the Donna Summer version of “MacArthur Park” and that’s possibly the most tenuous connection I’ve ever made in this blog.

So who was the first Spice Girl to go solo? The answer isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Strictly speaking, the first to market was Melanie B with “I Want You Back” which was released in September 1998. However, it also featured Missy ‘Misdemeanour’ Elliott so was that strictly a solo release? Next up was Melanie C but hers was a supporting role on the Bryan Adams song “When You’re Gone” so I don’t think that counts. That leaves “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell as the first truly solo Spice Girl single in May 1999 but…she wasn’t an actual Spice Girl at this point having already left the group so can she be the answer to the question ‘who was the first Spice Girl to go solo?’? That could be semantics at play but if not her then who? In chronological order that would return us to Melanie B when she released her cover of Cameo’s “Word Up”…except that single was officially credited to Melanie G as she’d recently got married to Jimmy Gulzar and taken his surname but Melanie G only existed for that one release and nobody talks about Mel G when the subject of the Spice Girls is discussed so…that brings us back to Melanie C and her single “Goin’ Down”.

The first track taken from her triple platinum album “Northern Star”, this was no “Wannabe”. In fact, it was nothing like any Spice Girls release ever. A defiantly rock track, it was supposedly inspired by Blur’s “Song 2” but it sounds like Mel’s doing her best Skunk Anansie impression to me. I have to say that it’s not great – all style over content – though it secured a fairly respectable chart peak of No 4. Mel’s sound wasn’t the only thing that was new – she also unveiled her latest look. That blond spiky hair had more than a touch of the aforementioned John Lydon about it (Jamie Theakston even refers to her as “Punky Spice”) and was that gold tooth cap always there? More than that though was her attitude. Gone were the backflips and cheesy smiles – this was a growling, confrontational Melanie C. She could even be said to be courting controversy, The lyrics include the words “bitch” and “whore” (though they’re obviously muted in this performance) and then there’s her video for the song which was banned by some outlets for its violent content though the biggest crime is Mel’s Axl Rose spring tartan skirt.

French and Saunders memorably parodied said video…

Joking aside though, Mel C has some amazing stats to her name:

Her album “Northern Star” is the best selling album of any of the Spice Girls’ solo releases
She holds the record for the largest attendance of a free concert within a public event
She has co-written 11 UK number ones, more than any other female artist in chart history
She remains the only female performer to top the charts as a solo artist, as part of a duo, quartet and quintet

Having said all of the above, I heard her latest single “Sweat” on the radio the other day and it’s proper pony.

When did tribute albums become a thing? I suppose it depends on your definition of what a tribute album is. For example, is “Hollies Sing Dylan” a tribute to Bob Dylan by The Hollies or just The Hollies doing a load of Bob Dylan covers? Does a tribute album have to be composed of multiple different acts covering the work of one artist? That would rule out “The Chipmunks Sing The Beatles Hits” which is probably a just as well.

OK, so if we’re going with that rule, the first one I think I was aware of was 1990’s “Red Hot + Blue” which was a compilation of covers of Cole Porter songs by various artists including Annie Lennox, U2, Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop and, best of all, David Byrne’s version of “Don’t Fence Me In”. In 1994, we had The Carpenters tribute album “If I Were A Carpenter” which had a more indie vibe to it with contributions from Sonic Youth, Shonen Knife, Babes In Toyland and my personal favourite Redd Kross. I think there might have been one for The Smiths as well but in 1999 came the big one – well, a big one if, like me, you’d grown up with The Jam. Now, to be clear, it was my elder brother who was a fully paid up member of The Jam Army but I couldn’t help but be exposed to them by osmosis if nothing else. When Britpop came along, Paul Weller found himself positioned as The Godfather of the movement and name checked constantly as an influence for its main protagonists. Was that part of the reason behind the release of their tribute album named “Fire & Skill: The Songs Of The Jam”?

Whatever its origin story, it featured some very contemporary indie rock artists such as Gene, Heavy Stereo and Silver Sun alongside some bigger names like Noel and Liam Gallagher, Garbage and the Beastie Boys. A double A-side single was released to promote it which was “Going Underground / Carnation” by Buffalo Tom / Liam Gallagher and Steve Cradock. Now, “Going Underground” was an obvious choice being The Jam’s first of four No 1 singles but “Carnation”? That was an album track from the band’s sixth and final LP “The Gift” so nowhere near as well known to the uncommitted. It is a fine song though nevertheless.

This 1999 version of it works well enough but I could have done without the overly keen attempt to instil it with a spaced out, trippy vibe with the reverb effects on Liam’s vocals (which suited the track anyway without them) and the backwards tape loops. It was a track from The Jam in 1982 not a psychedelic Beatles song from the late 60s. Anyway, although not credited on the single, that’s clearly Noel Gallagher up there with his brother and Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock and is that Oasis’s Alan White on the drums as well? Noel added his own individual contribution to the album (“To Be Someone” from 1978’s “All Mod Cons”) and was a regular collaborator with Paul Weller. The whole album doesn’t appear to be on Spotify though Buffalo Tom’s version of “Going Underground” is and it’s worth a listen for a different take on a well known classic.

We hadn’t seen nor heard from Eurythmics for nearly the whole of the 90s. After releasing eight albums in eight years, tensions between Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were strained and the band disbanded with little fanfare. Lennox would release two successful solo albums whilst Dave Stewart formed The Spiritual Cowboys and released his own underrated solo album. In his intro, Jamie Theakston says that Annie had told him that it had been 10 years since the release of their last single. Well, that was nearly true. Their last single taken from an album of new material came in April 1990 – “Angel” from “We Too Are One” – and I should know as I bought it. After that their was a rerelease of “Love Is A Stranger” and a remix of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” to promote 1991’s six times platinum selling “Greatest Hits” collection so Annie wasn’t 100% correct but she wasn’t far off. Suddenly though, with just a few weeks left of the decade they were back.

So what prompted their return? The popular story is that after receiving a Brit Award For Outstanding Contribution To Music at the start of 1999, they decided to reconvene Eurythmics once more. However, that’s a false narrative as they’d already been writing together since playing at a record company party in 1998 and subsequently at a benefit concert for the family of journalist Ruth Picardie who had died of breast cancer. The result of their endeavours was “Peace”, the eighth and, so far, final Eurythmics album.

The lead single was “I Saved The World Today”, melodic of tune yet sorrowful of mood and possessing that, as ever, crystal clear vocal from Annie. It was a strong comeback and deserved better than missing the Top 10 by one place. The follow up single – “17 Again” – was even better and I especially enjoyed the interpolation of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” in its coda. The album did well commercially though its sales were dwarfed by those of that 1991 “Greatest Hits” which was the second best selling album of that year behind Simply Red’s “Stars”. The only Eurythmics album released since “Peace” was another Best Of called “Ultimate Collection” in 2005 whilst Dave and Annie have performed at one off events in 2014 (a Beatles tribute concert) and at Sting’s 30th We’ll Be Together benefit concert in 2019. They were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

Another return now as Gabrielle is back in the charts for the first time in two years with her new single “Sunshine”, the lead track from her third album “Rise”. Had we missed her? I’m sure some had but me? Not so much. I always found her too generic, too samey. Sure, “Dreams” was a memorable tune but for me, the majority of her output conformed to a soul/pop formula that was certainly radio friendly but not very substantial. “Sunshine” was another such song in my book. Conversely, her next single, the title track from her album, would be more of a standout with its Bob Dylan sample taking her back to No 1 for the first time since her debut with the aforementioned “Dreams”. She would perfect her blueprint sound with “Out Of Reach” in 2001 from the soundtrack to Bridget Jones’s Diary.

And so to the No 1 and the only nasty dance track in the show (in my humble opinion). “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” by Eiffel 65 was in its third week at the top and by this point, any novelty hook that it might have had long since lost its appeal. They would have one more hit – the No 3 “Move Your Body” – so we’re not done with this lot yet I’m sorry to say.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	S Club 7	S Club Party	No
2	Pet Shop Boys	New York City Boy	Nope
3	Macy Gray	I Try	Good song but no
4	Melanie C	Goin’ Down	Nah
5	Buffalo Tom / Liam Gallagher and Steve Cradock	Going Underground / Carnation	Despite my association to The Jam, I did not
6	Eurythmics	I Saved The World Today	See 3 above
7	Gabrielle	Sunshine	No thanks
8	Eiffel 65	Blue (Da Ba Dee)	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002w1qw/top-of-the-pops-08101999

TOTP 01 OCT 1999

Posted on 7 Days Ago by 80stastic

Five of this episode’s eight hits we’ve already seen on previous shows so what gives? More running order manipulation by executive producer Chris Cowey or was it a particularly static chart this week?

*checks official.charts.com website*

Well, the Top 40 consisted entirely of new entries and songs going down the charts with a solitary non-mover. I haven’t checked but I think the charts were like this most weeks around this time as new release discounting by record companies took hold. There were eleven new entries so obviously they couldn’t all be shown so the five highest were featured which I guess can be justified. Here’s the thing though – of those five, two we’d already seen as exclusive performances before they were even in the charts. So what about the other three hits we’d seen before? Well, one is last week’s No 1 which is still at the top so I can’t argue with that, one is a previous No 1 which was at No 4 (so no need to show that again) and one which had debuted at No 2 three weeks ago and gone down the charts every week since and was now at No 8 (absolute travesty that it was shown again!).

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we’ve reached the Newcastle leg of our Top Of The Tops On Tour journey around the country with the show coming from the Ikon nightclub which guess what? Yep, it’s not there anymore. Geordie Jayne must have been in her element though.

We start with that ludicrous showing of the No 8 hit this week which is “The Launch” by DJ Jean. What else is there to say about this one? I have nothing so here’s how they reviewed it in clubbing magazine Mixmag when listing ‘The Biggest Drops in Dance Music’ (whatever that means) in 2020:

“Get ready for the launch advises a vocal near the start of this track. The sage words follow a sample of NASA comms, which come back around as a space shuttle countdown (5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..) as the track builds towards its momentous drop. It’s extremely cheesy, and extremely fun”.

Seb Wheeler; Dave Turner; Patrick Hinton (17 April 2020). “The Best Drops In Dance Music According To You”. Mixmag

“Cheesy and extremely fun”? Queasy and extremely dumb I’d say. Next!

And again I say NEXT! No, no, no,no, NO! Not Shania Twain and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”! Now, I’ve used a lot of exclamation marks in my words above but I feel justified in exclaiming my horror at this song. I can’t be the only person who abhors this tune can I? Well, I’m not because there’s at least one reader of this blog who agrees with me who said of it:

“Shania Twain is the soundtrack to drunken hen do’s around the world”

Essor, 29 April 2026

Indeed. So who else is with us? There must be some negative reviews of “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” online no? Let me have a look…

*checks comments against its official video on YouTube*

…erm, no. Overwhelmingly positive including testimonies about female cancer survivors who used the song to give them strength and fortitude. I’m beginning to feel a bit guilty now. Surely someone else can’t abide this song?

*checks internet desperately*

Nothing! Well, just one who said this in response to a forum post asking if people felt euphoric after listening to it or whether it was a cliché:

“Can’t stand it, personally. I can’t say I’ve ever felt euphoric after listening to any particular song. Music for me tends to be a darker expression, like ‘My Body is a Cage’ or ‘Born a Girl’ (Manic Street Preachers)”.

Reddit, 2023, username unknown

Hmm. I’m not sure I want to closely associate my remarks with someone who sees music as a dark expression. I think I’ll leave this whole conversation by referring to my mate Robin who once pointed out to me that music is subjective and that he can have the opinion that he dislikes everything Elton John has ever recorded. Indeed, it’s his right to.

OK, who’s next? Ah, a perfect choice for the TOTP On Tour brand. An artist who used to be in a successful group but who left and was now pursuing solo stardom. This sort of promotion was made for such a scenario. Kéllé Bryan had, of course, been a part of UK R&B girl group Eternal…until she was sacked by fax by the Bennett sisters Easther and Vernie after the release of their Greatest Hits album in 1997 due to a reported “breakdown in professional relations”. Unsurprisingly, the accounts of both parties vary wildly as to the reasons behind the split but what is definite is that, by this point, Louise Redknapp (née Nurding) had long since left the group so it left the sisters to continue as a duo.

Sadly for Kéllé, her solo career never achieved lift off like Louise’s did. In fact, it barely got off the ground. This solitary single – “Higher Than Heaven” – was all she had to show for it. A second single and album scheduled for release in late 1999 never appeared though both singles are now available on Spotify. So what happened? Online reports suggest her health suffered after she was diagnosed with lupus and therefore unable to undertake any promotional activities. It’s a theory that potentially holds water though, as ever, the truth is probably more nuanced. Could she have been successful as a solo artist? There was definitely some promise as “Higher Than Heaven” was a bright, gospel-tinged R&B/pop song that was perfect for daytime radio. Its No 14 peak possibly didn’t do it justice. However, for me, it couldn’t eclipse its namesake by Age Of Chance which really should have been a bigger hit:

Kéllé would go on to have a career in TV appearing in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks and becoming part of the Loose Women team. Together with Louise Redknapp, she declined the chance to take part in an Eternal reunion in 2023 after reported comments by the Bennett sisters stating that they would not appear in a number of LGBT Pride events claiming that the trans community had hijacked Pride.

P.S. This is weird and surely nothing to do with algorithms. Just as I finished writing about Kéllé, Celebrity Bridge Of Lies came on TV starring Clare Richards from Steps, Kimberly Wyatt of The Pussycat Dolls, Amelle Berrabah of Sugababes and yep, Kéllé Bryan ex-Eternal. Spooky!

After just one new song we’re back to a track we only just saw in the last show. Fortunately, it is David Bowie. Unfortunately, it’s not one of his best. “Thursday’s Child” was previewed in a ‘new’ (as categorised by the TOTP caption person) performance seven days prior but as the single has gone into the Top 40 at No 16, we get a repeat showing this week. I’ve not a lot else to say about it having already discussed it in the last post. However, I couldn’t help but note that, in 1999, a new Bowie song debuted on the chart lower than that of someone who was chucked out of Eternal. Hmm.

And still talking of Eternal, whilst their line up had halved to a duo since their inception, next up are a group with seven members in it – yes, it’s S Club 7 with their follow up to their debut No 1 single “Bring It All Back”. Whilst that track had been all out pop with a bpm that was almost exhausting, their second single slowed the beats down with an R&B groove whilst retaining an unshiftable hook. The real genius here though was in its title. “S Club Party” reinforced their brand whilst imbuing it with the idea that they were all about fun – “There ain’t no party like an S Club Party” indeed. It was clever stuff. The songwriters even incorporated a verse which name checked every member of the group to imprint their identities on the nation’s consciousness. The single didn’t quite emulate the chart success of its predecessor by peaking at No 2 but it was surely strong consolidation for the fledging pop act. S Club 7 were doing their thing alright.

And the pop sensations keep on coming. As host Jayne Middlemiss states in her intro, Britney Spears had the biggest selling single of the year in the UK at this point with “…Baby One More Time” (a fact that wouldn’t change by the end of 1999). Given that level of success, the obvious thing to do would be to repeat the formula which is exactly what Britney did with “(You Drive Me) Crazy”. Now, in fairness to her, she didn’t jump to that conclusion straight away. Her second single “Sometimes” had a much softer sound to it with the beat count slowed right down to ballad status. It had worked as well giving Britney a Top 3 hit over here. However, for her third single she did revert to that original blueprint. “(You Drive Me) Crazy” was essentially “…Baby One More Time” all over again – “Baby Two More Times” if you will. Not that she should be criticised necessarily for that. Plenty of artists have done the same thing before and since but you couldn’t fail to notice the similarities.

Yet again Britney can’t be in the studio herself (nearly all her appearances to this point had just been via the official video for her hit) so she sends us another to camera message to apologise. Again. Anyway, the video is what you would expect. A massive troupe of dancers busting moves everywhere in a club setting but if you look closely you’ll see cameos by Adrian Grenier (Entourage) and Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) as “(You Drive Me) Crazy” was used in the soundtrack for the movie Drive Me Crazy in which they starred. I have never seen said film nor do I wish to but I must admit to not even being aware of its existence so maybe the endorsement by association with Britney didn’t quite work? “(You Drive Me) Crazy” would go Top 5 in the UK but more No 1s would follow with “Born To Make You Happy” and yet another “…Baby One More Time” apeing hit in “Oops!…I Did It Again” (erm…again) going to the top of our singles chart.

Right Cowey, explain yourself! Why was Lou Bega on again given that “Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of)” was now at No 4, its lowest chart position so far having spent two weeks at No 1 and a further two at No 2? He’d already had two appearances on the show courtesy of his time at the top. There were other new entries into this week’s Top 40 that could have featured like Idlewild or Blink 182. You couldn’t have showcased them? Admittedly they were a lot further down the chart but in the chart they certainly were. Bah!

Eiffel 65 remain at the top of the tree with “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” for the second of three weeks at No 1. Their hit would become the second biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Looking at that year end chart, this particular TOTP featured four artists who appeared in the Top 10 including three within the Top 4. They were Britney Spears, Eiffel 65, Lou Bega and Shania Twain. 1999 – what a time to be alive.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	DJ Jean	The Launch	Of course not
2	Shania Twain	Man! I Feel Like A Woman!	NEVER!
3	Kéllé Bryan	Higher Than Heaven	Didn’t happen
4	David Bowie	Thursday’s Child	Negative
5	S Club 7	S Club Party	Nope
6	Britney Spears	(You Drive Me) Crazy	Nah
7	Lou Bega	Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of)	No
8	Eiffel 65	Blue ( Da Ba Dee)	I did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vr8v/top-of-the-pops-01101999

TOTP 24 SEP 1999

Posted on 9 Days Ago by 80stastic

On the date this TOTP was broadcast, 45 years earlier, the Italian footballer Marco Tardelli was born. Yes, the guy behind one of the most iconic goal celebrations of all time that happened in the aftermath of him scoring Italy’s second goal in the 1982 World Cup final which became known as the ‘Tardelli Scream’. That guy. I wonder if any of the acts in this show could elicit such a reaction of pure emotion?

Our host is Jamie Theakston and this week the show comes live from the L2 nightclub in Liverpool as part of the Top Of The Pops On Tour project. We start with last week’s No 1 which has dropped to No 4 this week (the weekly changing of the guard at the top of the charts was in full effect by this point). However, the Vengaboys were at the peak of their commercial powers in 1999 with two consecutive No 1 singles of which “We’re Going To Ibiza” was the second.

Although it is a terrible, terrible song, it does have an interesting spin off story which occurred in 2019. The ‘Ibiza Affair’ or ‘Ibiza-gate’ was a political scandal involving Heinz-Christian Strache, the former vice-chancellor of Austria and leader of The Freedom Party and Johann Gudenus, a former deputy leader of the same political party. A sting operation commissioned by Iranian lawyer Ramin Mirfakhra saw Strache and Gudenus discussing their party’s underhanded practices and intentions in a secretly recorded meeting in Ibiza. It led to the collapse of the Austrian government with demonstrators in Vienna co-opting “We’re Going To Ibiza” as a song of protest against the government causing the track to re-chart and the Vengaboys themselves to perform it at the ‘Thursday demonstrations’ protests in front of the Chancellery in Vienna. Well, it’s a step up from this I guess…

Scream connection: In interviews, Vengaboys members have mentioned that they encourage a back-and-forth energy with the crowd, often saying, “If we all scream loud enough, nobody hears the mistakes”. Yeah, there’s no scream with enough decibels to disguise what a mistake “We’re Going To Ibiza” was.

What to say about Sting’s solo career? On the one hand, the case could be made that it’s been both lengthy and stellar. Fourteen studio albums released over a 40 year period including two No 1s with the latest release coming in 2021. On the other, none of his albums have made the Top 10 since 2003’s “Sacred Love” and he has only had one Top 10 single ever if you discount his 1994 collaboration with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams “All For Love”. I think I could probably name a fair few of his hits but then I spent a decade working in record shops. How many of his solo songs have genuinely cut through to the wider general public? I would say maybe two – “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” because of its title based on a saying already in parlance and the reference in Jimmy Nail’s No 1 “Ain’t No Doubt” and “Fields Of Gold” and that’s only because of the life it took on when it was covered by Eva Cassidy and the Terry Wogan effect. “Brand New Day” was never going to make that list of two which is a shame as it’s not a bad song. The lead single and title track from Sting’s sixth solo studio album, it has a certain charm with its lolloping rhythms and Stevie Wonder vibe (Wonder actually plays harmonica on the track). I like Sting’s phrasing of the lyrics and even the jazzy trombone interjections which I would ordinarily object to don’t trouble me.

The album would sell well, making the Top 5 and going platinum matching the performance of its predecessor “Mercury Rising”. Tellingly though, neither sold anywhere near as many copies as 1997’s “The Very Best of Sting & The Police” which, although a bizarre concept and perhaps not a true barometer of his solo popularity, did indicate that there was maybe more interest in Sting’s past glories than an appetite for new material.

Scream connection: well, there’s the legendary screaming matches between Sting and The Police drummer Stewart Copeland as a result of their toxic working relationship.

The musical transformation of Everything But The Girl from jazz-pop stylists to electronica dance merchants had, for the most part, left me cold. I’d appreciated the milestone making “Missing” (who hadn’t?) but the continuation of that direction via the “Walking Wounded” album had not maintained that regard. I was with the gig-goer who caught the band around this time and who was overhead by the band’s Ben Watt to say, “Well, that was a load of techno bollocks”.

Rather than being a one-off experiment though, Ben and Tracey Thorn doubled down on the dance vibe for follow up album “Temperamental”. Those in the know (i.e. the music press – ahem) divined a slight readjustment of dance sensibilities with the drum ‘n’ bass beats toned down in favour of a more old school house sound but it all sounded the same to my dance deaf ears. Here’s a typical review:

“EBTG’s early bossa-nova folk has been fully transformed into a contemporary sonic physicality that washes the album’s desperation with sweaty, regenerative joy”

Walters, Barry (October 1999). “This New House”, Spin; Vol. 15, no. 10. pp. 151–152.

“Sonic physicality”? Sweaty, regenerative joy”? I think I’ll pass and I did. Having said all of that, listening to “Five Fathoms” which acted as the lead single from the album (although technically that was “The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)” which they released with Deep Dish a year prior), I actually didn’t mind it. There was more of a proper song structure in there than I was expecting and I liked some of the lyrics like:

“Did I grow up just to stay home?
I’m not immune, I love this tune”

Songwriters: Ben Watt, Five Fathoms lyrics © Sm Publishing Uk Limited

Plus, of course, Tracey’s vocals are always on point. However, “Temperamental” would prove commercially inferior to “Walking Wounded” by some distance and would be the last Everything But The Girl album of new material for nearly a quarter of a century.

Scream connection: Their song “Tender Blue” from the “Eden” album contains the lyric “The baby’s screaming down the hall”.

Before the next act, there’s a bizarre little interlude where Jamie Theakston interviews Holly Johnson. Had this been 1989 instead of 1999, it might have made some sense with Holly riding high in the charts back then with his first solo hits like “Love Train” and “Americanos” but a decade on, he hadn’t been near the Top 40 since. The album he mentions as his next release – “Soulstream” – was studiously ignored in every territory despite including a version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “The Power Of Love”. It’s all a bit pointless and inexplicable and does nobody any favours with the only retrievable piece of utility being that Holly can introduce the next artist who also shares the surname Johnson.

Paul Johnson was a Chicago house DJ and record producer who started the label Dust Traxx and was known for his big personality. He was also a wheelchair user from the age of 16 following an incident where a stray bullet left him paralysed from the waist down. His wheelchair is clearly visible in this performance making him the first person to appear in one on TOTP since…Robert Wyatt in 1974 and his version of “I’m A Believer”? Did he perform “Shipbuilding” on the show in 1983?

Anyway, his hit was “Get Get Down” which was the penultimate Billboard Dance Club No 1 of the 20th century and a Top 5 hit in the UK. A house anthem that was as likely to fill daytime radio playlists as dance floors up and down the country, it was a curiously sparse track consisting of just a looped bass riff, a driving descending beat in what passed for the chorus and the word “down” repeated over and over. I would have liked it better if it had sampled “Wham Rap” – “I said a-get, get, get on down, I said a-get, get, get on down”.

One of those to play “Get Get Down” on the radio were Marc and Lard who, in a pretence of displeasure at such a negative sounding record, would chant “Up, up, up, up” over the top of it. I still miss those guys. Paul Johnson would have one leg amputated in 2003 whilst the other was also removed after a car accident in 2010. He died in 2021 after contracting COVID-19.

Scream connection: In a 1964 New Statesman essay titled “The Menace Of Beatlism”, a British journalist and historian called Paul Johnson attacked the phenomenon of screaming fans.

Anyone remember NetAid? No, me neither. Band Aid and Live Aid? Yes, of course. Sport Aid? Yep. I even vaguely recall Hear ‘n Aid but NetAid? Zip, nothing, nada. For the record, it was an anti-poverty initiative started by the United Nations Development Programme and American multinational technology conglomerate corporation Cisco Systems. It was launched by a concert event on 9 October 1999 to utilise a fledgling internet to raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt. Three concerts in Wembley, New Jersey and Geneva took place with a host of international stars on the respective bills. So, a sort of Live Aid for the 90s then.

To help spearhead the campaign, a single was released. Just as the aforementioned Live Aid had its own such promotional track in Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s desecration of “Dancing In The Streets”, NetAid had the duo of Wyclef Jean and U2’s Bono with an insufferable song called “New Day”. I thought I had zero chance of remembering this but there was something about Wyclef Jean banging on about “nuff respect” that stirred a neurone in my memory into action. I wish it had stayed dormant. This was a hateful mash up of musical styles that just didn’t work. There’s a cringeworthy bit where Wyclef exhorts Bono with the line “Now Bono won’t you sing the hook?”. Oh. Dear. In short, it was a complete and utter mess. Unlike Jagger and Bowie’s equally miserable effort, it didn’t even fulfil its brief of raising lots of cash for its charity, staggering to one week at No 23 n the UK charts. Look, it was for charity and all that but let’s not talk about this ever again OK?

Scream connection: Billedkunst Opphavsrett i Norge or BONO for short is a Norwegian copyright organization that manages rights for artists including Edvard Munch who painted the seminal Expressionist work The Scream.

We continue the internet theme with the return of a music legend. The 80s are often referred to as to as a fallow decade for David Bowie in terms of the quality of his back catalogue but the 90s were hardly a golden period I would argue either. After the albums “Outside” and “Earthling” saw him trying to keep up with ever changing musical movements, his final album before the new Millennium- “Hours” – found him trying to be at the forefront of a technological revolution. It was one of the first albums by a major artist available to download via the internet and specifically via Bowie’s website BowieNet. The ability to do such a thing is completely taken for granted by Generation Z but back in 1999, it would have been a totally alien concept for most of us. Not everyone was an early adopter like Bowie and even if we had an internet connection, it probably wasn’t up to downloading multiple files. However, “Hours” was released digitally before it was physically so it must have been a frustrating experience for many of Bowie’s devoted fanbase.

Bowie predicts the internet in 1999

For those people who did manage to access the album via their computer, would they have been pleased or disappointed by the fruits of their labours? Well, “Hours” received generally mixed reviews and regularly appears towards the bottom of lists ranking Bowie’s albums. Critics seemed to like individual tracks but believed that the album lacked cohesion. Lead single “Thursday’s Child” was one of its more well received songs but it’s hardly classic Bowie though some tried to relate it to his seminal “Hunky Dory” album. An airy ballad of sorts, its title was inspired by Eartha Kitt’s autobiography though surely the traditional nursery rhyme “Monday’s Child” had a bearing as well. If so, Bowie wasn’t the first to incorporate it into a song with the likes of Matt Monro and Spandau Ballet using the motif before him. Am I saying Bowie copied the Spandau boys? No, I wouldn’t dare obviously. “Thursday’s Child” peaked at No 16 despite Bowie’s in person performance here though clearly he wasn’t in the L2 nightclub in Liverpool – that would have been a major coup.

Scream connection: Bowie immersed himself in early 20th century German Expressionism during his Berlin period in the late 70s. Edvard Munch who painted The Scream was a pioneer of Expressionism.

The audience in Liverpool might have missed out on Bowie but they did get another big name in Tom Jones plus the added bonus of The Cardigans to boot. Together. How so? Well, Tom hadn’t released an album for five years and so to relaunch himself, he put together a covers album. Hardly an original concept but Tom added an extra layer of interest by recording each individual song as a collaboration with a different artist including the likes of Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Natalie Imbruglia. The lead single taken from it was a cover of the Talking Heads track “Burning Down The House” with the aforementioned Swedish rockers The Cardigans.

It appeared a bold choice on initial inspection. For a start, how well known was the song? Sure, it had been Talking Heads’ only Top 10 hit in the US but in the UK it had failed to chart on its release in 1983. So, we were talking about a 16 year old song that had never been a hit. That take is disingenuous though as “Burning Down The House” was hardly unknown. Its parent album “Speaking In Tongues” had charted in the UK and moreover, it was an integral part of perhaps the greatest live album of all time – “Stop Making Sense”. All that said though, there were perhaps more obvious choices for the lead single from Tom’s covers album “Reload” – INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” or “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks maybe? Obvious isn’t always right though and Tom and The Cardigans’ version of “Burning Down The House” lit the charts up returning Jones to the Top 10 for the first time since 1988 which was, coincidentally, also a cover – Prince’s “Kiss” with the Art Of Noise. I was one of those who bought “Burning Down The House” though mainly for Tom’s version of EMF’s “Unbelievable” which was an extra track on the CD single after seeing him perform it live with EMF on his 1992 TV series Tom Jones: The Right Time which is just a great clip.

Scream connection: Jones is well known for eliciting screams from his audiences at live gigs where the throwing of underwear on stage has also been a regular occurrence.

One of the most memorable/annoying No 1s of the year now as Eiffel 65 top the chart with “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. This was yet another dance track that had caused a splash over the summer in Ibiza and, like ATB and Lou Bega before it, the record had charted in a minor way just in sales of import copies alone before shooting straight to the summit over here once it had an official UK release. Despite their French sounding name, this lot were actually Italian and they came up with their most well known track after the initial looped keyboard hook was fleshed out with some nonsense lyrics about a blue man living in a blue world (or something). However, the track’s USP was the “da ba dee” line in the chorus which had an almost hypnotic effect on the listener. It also created one of the most infamous misheard lyrics of all time as many people (including myself) heard “Aberdeen I will die”. Surely only Kate Bush’s backing vocals line “Jeux sans frontières” in Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” which was misheard as “She’s so popular” rivals it. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” was No 1 all around Europe and beyond and would stay at the top of the UK charts for three weeks (one of only three singles to do so in 1999) becoming the second biggest selling single of the year. Yabba-da-ba-dee!

Scream connection: Well, here’s a thing. Aside from the “Aberdeen I will die” mishear, the internet tells me that “Da Ba dee” was also mistaken for either “If I bleed, I would die” or “I will scream” and that some have concluded that they were inspired by a ritualistic, screaming, dancing event. Bloody conspiracy theories.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Vengaboys	We’re Going To Ibiza	As if
2	Sting	Brand New Day	I did not
3	Everything But The Girl	Five Fathoms	Nope
4	Paul Johnson	Get Get Down	Not for me
5	Wyclef Jean / Bono	New Day	Never
6	David Bowie	Thursday’s Child	Nah
7	Tom Jones / The Cardigans	Burning Down The House	YES!
8	Eiffel 65	Blue (Da Ba Dee)	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vr8s/top-of-the-pops-24091999

TOTP 17 SEP 1999

Posted on 14 Days Ago by 80stastic

Four days before this TOTP was broadcast was a very significant date if you were a fan of science fiction and of one show in particular. You see, 13 September 1999 is the date that a thermonuclear explosion caused the moon to blast out of Earth’s orbit and into deep space. Well, it did in Gerry Anderson’s Space:1999 anyway. I loved this show when I was a kid though I probably didn’t understand a lot of the heavy, complex plots in Series One that dealt with metaphysical themes. Series (Year) Two was much more action-orientated, awash with monsters with each episode pretty much ending in a bug hunt which was probably more alluring for the eight years old me. 50 years on, I can appreciate that the first series was infinitely superior. I haven’t done a theme post for a while so let’s see if I can make some very tenuous connections between the artists on this TOTP and Space:1999…

Before we get to all that though, who’s this not-seen-before host for this show? Emma Ledden? It’s a new name on me. Well, she’s an Irish author, presenter, model and writer who at the time of this broadcast was about to take over the reins of presenting Saturday morning children’s TV show Live & Kicking after Zoe Ball and Jamie Theakston had left so I guess this was a bit of cross promotion by the BBC. That certainly seems to be the case as this was the only TOTP she ever presented. She now runs a communications company and is a published children’s author. Oh and by the way, we’re still in TOTP On Tour mode with this show coming from Club Wow in Sheffield. We start with the only song this week that has featured on a previous show – “Moving” by Supergrass. As such, I’ve already reviewed this one. Here’s what I had to say about it:

TOTP 26 AUG 1999

Can I just leave it at that? No? OK, well checking it out online I found a comment that said that the intro to “Moving” is just like that of the track “Dogs” by Pink Floyd. Now, never having caught the boat going to Floyd island, I’m not in a position to make any comparison without listening first so…

…Wow! It’s just like it! Was that deliberate on the part of Supergrass or subconscious?

Space:1999 connection: The video for “Pumping On Your Stereo” features Supergrass as animatronic puppets with human heads, a visual style that pays homage to the “Supermarionation” technique pioneered by Gerry Anderson, the creator of Space 1999.

After their ubiquitous Summer hit “Kiss Me” had finally dropped out of the charts, Sixpence None The Richer made a bold, unexpected decision for the follow up single. For many, “There She Goes” by The La’s was seen as untouchable when it came to covering it and yet that’s just what the Christian alternative rock band did. Why would it have been seen as musical blasphemy? I think perhaps it’s because of the almost myth-like status that has been built up around The La’s over time. In an alternate universe, they would not have split after just one album and would have given us a wealth of material over a long career and it’s that missed opportunity on which their legend has been built. The story that never got to be told. The paucity of La’s recordings* means that the ones that exist are upheld as almost religious artefacts so to dare to cover their most well known and perhaps treasured song…well, it was…daring. That might all sound a bit over the top and yes, I could be open to accusations of hyperbole but I think I prefer to call it artistic licence.

*They reformed briefly in the mid-1990s, 2005 and 2011 but no new recordings were released.

Anyway, was the Sixpence None The Richer version of “There She Goes” any good? Actually, after all that ~~hyperbole~~ artistic licence above about The La’s original, it’s a pretty respectful take on it. Sort of reminds me of the Cowboy Junkies but poppier. Its peak of No 14, though nowhere near as high as that of “Kiss Me”, suggests that the record buying public didn’t reject it out of hand as sacrilegious. Of course, it’s possible that the pop kids of 1999 weren’t aware of the 1990 incarnation and took it on its own merits and liked it enough and I guess that’s where I’ll leave this one. It was an adequate cover – good enough.

Space:1999 connection: Sixpence None The Richer’s name was inspired by a passage from C.S.Lewis’s book Mere Christianity. Lewis also wrote a Space Trilogy including the title Out of the Silent Planet which explored the idea of Earth as a ‘Silent Planet’ quarantined from the rest of the cosmos whereas Space: 1999 depicts humanity forced out of that quarantine due to a disaster. Put that in your rocket and ignite it!

It’s Hepburn’s nemesis next – the blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em Thunderbugs. Yes, the other big player in the ‘all girl groups playing their own instruments’ mini movement at the end of the 90s make their TOTP bow with their debut single “Friends Forever”. Unlike Hepburn though who all hailed from England, Thunderbugs had an international flavour to them with members from France and Germany in their line up. So, who came first or should that be who copied who? Perhaps neither question holds water as both groups appear to have met organically rather than being recruited for a specific project akin to the Spice Girls. Admittedly, Hepburn got their product to market first but only by a few weeks. Should the question then be were there any differences between the two? On the surface the answer is no as both consisted of four members who all played their own instruments and both were pedalling a rock/pop sound. Digging a little deeper, I would say that Thunderbugs were actually more pure pop in that “Friends Forever” sounds like something from High School Musical but I might be splitting hairs. What is true is that both bands couldn’t sustain. Thunderbugs released a follow up that flopped, failing to make the Top 40 in a packed Christmas market and their album wasn’t even released in the UK (though it is now available on Spotify). So much for Emma Ledden’s comment about this being the first of many TOTP appearances for them – this was their one and only. Hepburn, meanwhile, managed three mid-sized hits (including one called “Bugs” bizarrely) and a Top 30 album before being dropped in the Summer of 2000.

Space:1999 connection: Emma Ledden did my job for me in her intro “Thunderbugs are go” obviously referring to Gerry Anderson’s puppet series masterpiece Thunderbirds.

Well, this is fortunate. A new entry into the charts that is steeped in Sheffield music history whilst the show is being broadcast this week from a club in, yep, Sheffield. I wonder if that was in the thinking behind showcasing a hit at No 28 whilst ignoring a smash at No 7 by Leftfield/Afrika Bambatta. Anyway, it’s The All Seeing I featuring Phil Oakey who we get making a South Yorkshire double whammy for their single “1st Man In Space”. Written by yet another Sheffielder in Jarvis Cocker (supposedly a collaboration sparked by Pulp being on the same TOTP show as The All Seeing I in 1998), its lyrics inevitably drew comparisons with David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Rocket Man” by Elton John. However, it sounds more like early B-52s to me, maybe with a lick of New Order in the mix. That’s a good thing by the way with Oakey’s low register vocals a perfect compliment to that sound. It was probably a little too left field (no, not them) to be as big as their previous two hits “Walk Like A Panther” (made with another South Yorkshire man Tony Christie) and “Beat Goes On” and indeed, that aforementioned chart position of No 28 was its peak. Still, in a year of awful music, it provided a nice little pushback against the tide of tat. It was also The All Seeing I’s final UK hit.

Space:1999 connection: Space:1999? “1st Man In Space”? This shizzle writes itself.

And so to another cover version reactivating a hit years after it was originally in the charts but I’m guessing that this one would not have raised the same eyebrows that “There She Goes” did. Perhaps the defining anthem of bubblegum pop, “Mickey” started out life as “Kitty” on “Some Girls” hitmakers Racey’s debut album but was remodelled by Toni Basil with a name and gender change which propelled her to the top of the US charts and to No 2 in the UK in 1982. Basil’s pop career was basically just that one song and she returned to her more successful career as a choreographer working with some of the biggest names in music and showbiz. “Mickey” though would prove to be a remarkably hardy song, regularly topping ‘one hit wonder’ polls and becoming a staple of wedding disco playlists. I guess it was inevitable that somebody would cover it eventually and so it was that Lolly took it back into the charts in 1999. Who you may well ask? Born Anna Shantha Kumble, in Sutton Coldfield (and I’d always assumed she was American), Lolly had already had one hit with her debut single “Viva La Radio” which we missed in these TOTP repeats because of the Gouryella issue but she was back with her version of “Mickey” which would become her biggest hit of five when it peaked at No 4. Given Lolly’s image, it was an almost perfect choice of track and she gives a pretty faithful rendition of it (albeit with some clunky synths to the fore) even down to recreating the cheerleader motif. Her squeaky voice is almost unspeakable though.

Now there was some controversy surrounding these lyrics:

“So come on and give it to me any way you can
Any way you wanna do it, I’ll take it like a man”

Writer/s: Michael Donald Chapman, Nicholas Barry Chinn
Publisher: Downtown Music Publishing

Why? Well, a music critic called Robert Christgau suggested that the lines referred to anal sex (!) but Toni Basil adamantly denied that and indeed, neither Lolly nor her management felt the need not to include the lyrics in her version despite her teeny bop appeal. After her short lived music career was over (she had a couple more hits with cover versions of Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper tracks), Lolly diversified into TV presenting, stage roles (she’s a veteran of pantomimes) and even returned to music in 2018 with a single called “Stay Young And Beautiful” though I’m not sure anyone really noticed.

Space:1999 connection: Yasuko Nagazumi played Yasko in Space:1999 and her daughter was the lead singer of shoegaze band Lush – Miki Berenyi

WHOOOO?! LFO? They were an electronic dance duo from Leeds (Low Frequency Oscillations for all you pedants) who specialised in the bleep techno sound weren’t they? Well, yes they were but they were also an American pop-rap group who had a handful of hits around the turn of the century. LFO (or Lyte Funky Ones to give them their full title) have quite the tragic element to their story despite my not knowing who they were/are. Although clearly a trio here, their timeline of members consists of four people – three of them are now dead including two of those featured in this performance. That’s quite a death percentage. Their early releases included a cover of “Step By Step” by New Kids On The Block (more of them later) before going into the stratosphere with “Summer Girls” which made No 3 in the US and No 16 over here. Listening to it in 2026, I have to say its success seems inexplicable. It’s truly awful with some random lyrics supposedly inspired by memories of previous summers like these that put me in mind of “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image:

“New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick…When you take a sip, you buzz like a hornet
Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets…”

Songwriters: Bradley Young / Dow Brain / Rich Cronin; Summer Girls lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Well, there’s the New Kids On The Block reference but even worse is Billy Shakespeare. BIILY SHAKESPEARE?! REALLY?! The whole thing sounds dreadful, like they’d been given just 20 minutes to come up with a rap and this was the best that they could do. Maybe it’s just their name but they’re giving me EYC (Express Yourself Clearly) vibes when they should have been more EMF (Epsom Mad Funkers). Despite now numbering just one, their name is being kept alive by surviving member Brad Fischetti who has toured with reality TV boyband O-Town.

Space:1999 connection: Space:1999 was put into development after Gerry Anderson’s first live action sci-fi series UFO wasn’t commissioned for a second series. LFO…UFO? Ah, it’s close enough.

Ooh! Here’s a nice little link from Lolly whom we saw earlier to the next act courtesy of the ever reliable @TOTPFacts:

The only other top 40 hit to contain the name "Mickey" in its title was "Metal Mickey" by Suede (number 17, September 1992). #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 17, 2026

Excellent! Now, there was a third single from Suede’s “Head Music”? There was a third and fourth actually but “Everything Will Flow” was the third and it has the band on a very laid back vibe, with an almost cosmic sound. Suede go all hippy? Maybe that’s a stretch but it’s certainly less urgent than some of their back catalogue and I’m afraid to say that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s all a bit meandering and, dare I say it, dreary. Its high of No 24 was their worst chart position since their debut single “The Drowners” failed to make the Top 40. These were difficult times for the band with Brett Anderson’s addiction problems to the fore and their commercial fortunes on the wane. Everything was flowing and the band were drowning.

Space:1999 connection: Suede released a B-sides compilation album in 1997 called “Sci-Fi Lullabies”.

Just when I think that 1999 can’t have any more musical nadirs left to negotiate, up pops another abyss devoid of taste and creativity. How the hell did the UK put “We’re Going To Ibiza” by Vengaboys at No 1? Look, I get that the hordes of Brits holidaying on the Spanish island in the Summer meant that some of the tunes that they heard out there in the clubs would create a demand for them back in the UK but this wasn’t an Ibiza anthem was it? It was almost a novelty song based on the 1975 No 1 “Barbados” by Typically Tropical. It was crud, pure, irredeemable crud and yet the record buying public found it irresistible. Was it the way that they pronounced “Ibiza” as “I-bitz-a” (a common pronunciation in their home country of Holland) that people fell for? Is that all it took?! Never mind going to Ibiza, we were all going to Hell in a handcart.

Space:1999 connection: In 2021, Vengaboys released a single called “1999 (I Wanna Go Back)”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Supergrass	Moving	No but I had the album
2	Sixpence None The Rich	There She Goes	Nah
3	Thunderbugs	Friends Forever	Nope
4	The All Seeing Eye / Phil Oakey	1st Man In Space	Decent but no
5	Lolly	Mickey	No thanks
6	Lyte Funky Ones	Summer Girls	Of course not
7	Suede	Everything Will Flow	No
8	Vengaboys	We’re Going To Ibiza	Hell no!

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002v4qp/top-of-the-pops-17091999

TOTP 10 SEP 1999

Posted on 16 Days Ago by 80stastic

Here we are again for another whizz through the sights and sounds to be found in the charts of Autumn of 1999. We’re still in the TOTP On Tour phase of the programme with this particular show coming from Isis nightclub in Nottingham. Neither exist anymore – Isis nor TOTP – but then we are talking 27 years ago so I’d be more surprised if they did to be honest. Gail Porter is our host for a third week running. In fact, she’s done all of these touring shows so far – I wonder if anyone else got a look in?

*checks the TOTP Archive website*

Yes they do. This was her last time on the road with the programme though she would return to present a further 27 episodes up to 2003. OK, with that admin done, it’s on with the show…

Now, if you’re an actor who has given up the regular gig of being in a soap opera to pursue a pop career and you are faced with the task of following up your debut single which was a No 1 hit, what do you do? Well, if you’re Martine McCutcheon then you change tack completely by ditching that classic, sophisticated ballad sound and release a jaunty, upbeat, acoustic backed pop song that would comfortably reside in daytime radio playlists and hope for the best. Under those terms, “I’ve Got You” is a perfectly serviceable track and by securing Martine a Top 10 hit, it did what it was meant to in terms of consolidation. Or did it? After going straight to the top at her first attempt with “Perfect Moment”, was a solitary week at No 6 substantial enough a success? I’m not sure. Ultimately, I don’t think “I’ve Got You” was…well…substantial enough. Certainly the lyrics were lightweight, going on about having the moon, the stars and the sun and flowers not blooming. I guess if she’d done another big ballad she’d have been accused of being a one trick pony so maybe she couldn’t win?

Not only did Martine change her sound but also her look. Just as the sophisticated sonics of her debut hit were dropped, so was her sleek image that she adopted to promote it. “I’ve Got You” required something different and so her dark, lacquered hair was replaced by blonde, flyaway locks that Gail Porter describes as “loverly” thereby foreshadowing Martine’s role as Eliza Doolittle in the 2001 West End revival of My Fair Lady.

Gail goes on to say that mambo fever is still sweeping the nation in the intro to the next act and she’s not wrong as the No 3 and No 1 records this week are both of that persuasion. “(Mucho Mambo) Sway” by Shaft was the record in bronze medal position and like Fatboy Slim and Phats & Small before them, this duo were also from Brighton. What was it with electronic dance music acts in the 90s that so many of them had connections to that seaside resort? It was a relationship that would only be rivalled by my beloved Chelsea FC who, under their current useless owners, became unhealthy obsessed with Brighton and Hove Albion’s modus operandi. Erm…anyway…football rant over. Shaft would shamelessly try to repeat this mambo nonsense in early 2000 by releasing their version of “Mambo Italiano” but the world had moved on and it only made it to No 12. They then turned their attention to the “Wassuup!” Budweiser advertising campaign by setting the overused phrase to a sample of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”. What a pair of absolute grifters!

Of course, it wasn’t just the specific sub genre called mambo that was casting a huge influence over the UK charts in 1999 – the whole parent, umbrella term of Latin music was making itself known not just here but on a global stage. We’d already seen massive hits for artists like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez crossover into the mainstream and now, here was our first glimpse of the latest Latin superstar and this one had a family pedigree to back up his claims. Enrique Iglesias is, of course, the son of legendary crooner Julio Iglesias and had already recorded three Spanish language albums before “Bailamos” – his contribution to the soundtrack of the Will Smith movie Wild Wild West – brought him to our attention. I have to admit to not remembering how this one went – in fact, I think the only one of his that I know is “Hero” – but on watching this TOTP performance, I probably could have given it a good guess as to how it sounded. All the ingredients are there – the mixture of Spanish and English lyrics, that overused dance backbeat, lots of ‘whoah-oahing’, some whispered vocals from Enrique, and, most obviously, the obligatory Spanish guitar flourishes especially in the middle eight. In the then clamour for Latin flavoured tunes, it was a heady mix and was always going to deliver a breakthrough hit. Enrique’s looks weren’t exactly going to hold him back either.

“Bailamos” would secure a deal with a multi national record company and the chance to record whole albums in English and a career in the global mainstream inevitably followed. In a parallel world, it would be his elder brother Julio Iglesias Jr. (eh? His elder brother is called ‘Jr’?) who would have that career but his own musical offerings that were released before “Bailamos” did very little commercially and he was left with the fate of living not just in his father’s shadow but his younger brother’s as well. He should have recorded a song about a dance. His Dad’s biggest hit – “Begin The Beguine” – translates as “Start The Dance” whilst his brother’s breakthrough song means “We Dance” in English. A Latin pop version of Ultravox’s “We Came To Dance” was probably too much to hope for!

Oh dear. We have arrived at another horrible low point. I am very challenged by Shania Twain’s success in the respect that I just didn’t/don’t get it. Sure, she’s good looking and can no doubt sing but the hits that she’s most known for, I just couldn’t…well…I just couldn’t. Let’s leave it at that. Actually, no I won’t because “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” deserves a proper slaughtering. From its dumb title to its honking, parping synth hook, everything about this song winds me up. It’s just so lowest common denominator. In short, it’s stinky as my teenage son would have it. That’s not a view that was shared at the time though. Look at this review in Rolling Stone magazine:

“ “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and other high-gloss songs “open with a bubblegum glam cheerleader shout, then blasts into radio-ready rapture with offhand vocal interjections – doot-doot-doot scatting, do-si-do rapping, sexy squeaks, sarcastic Alanis Morissette asides.”

Eddy, Chuck (December 9, 1997)

That all sounds hideous! Who wants to”doot -doot-doot scatting” and “do-si-do rapping” in their songs?! And yes, I know the lyrics are all about female empowerment and that’s not to be discouraged and that its success could be down to its appeal to women record buyers…but I still don’t understand why its sound sucked so many people in. I was clearly in the minority though as it went to No 3 in the UK charts, matching the peak of its equally dreadful predecessor “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and would, as Gail Porter informs us, help propel parent album “Come On Over” to No 1 after being out for 18 months. It would spend 11 weeks accumulatively at the top of the charts becoming the UK’s best selling album of 1999. Bah!

There’s no upturn in quality following Shania as we get the latest boyband teen sensation A1 (awful, awful name) with their second single “Summertime Of Our Lives”. Predictably, this tune was so lightweight, if it had been a bloke on a pub crawl, it would have had its head down the toilet after a half of lager. I’ve read some reviews of it online suggesting its frivolity and throwaway nature should be embraced as, after all, it was the Summer and released to soundtrack the most relaxed of all the seasons. Except it wasn’t the Summer was it? September is surely the start of Autumn so A1 and/or their record label got their release schedule timings all wrong. In a way, that perfectly complimented its awfulness as did its lyrics. Look at these:

“Baby get ready get down
Are you up for it get down with it”

Songwriters: Adams / Cunnah / Ingebrigtsen / Marazzi / Read

Summertime of Our Lives lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

They just stole that from Five’s “Everybody Get Up” and put the words in a slightly different order. I use the word ‘they’ correctly here as the four lads all have their names up there in the writing credits alongside Peter Cunnah who was clearly looking for something to do after the demise of D:Ream. The single’s debut at No 5 and subsequent rapid tumble down the charts indicated that they had, indeed, developed a big enough devoted fan base to create an initial demand for whatever they released but that they were nowhere near crossing over into the mainstream of record buyers. Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter, A1 were crap all year round.

Just before we get to the next act, a quick word about the BBC Music Live 2000 event that Gail Porter trailed and for which there were details scrolling across our screens. Said details included a website address – were we all internet savvy in September 1999 in terms of having access to it at home? I think we may have had some sort of dial up connection but I certainly don’t recall being able to get on the worldwide web easily back then.

There was a third hit from The Offspring’s “Americana” album?! Yes there was and it was called “The Kids Aren’t Alright” but it wasn’t as big a seller as it’s two preceding singles “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” or “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” so maybe that’s why I don’t remember it. Clearly there’s a reference to The Who’s classic song in its title but it was actually a more unlikely track that caused plagiarism claims to be made which are undeniable once you’ve heard it. “Electricity” by OMD might not seem like an obvious influence for an American pop-punk band but its melody is unmistakably there in “The Kids Aren’t Alright”. Apparently there’s a version of “Electricity “ by LA punk rockers NOFX which adds substance to the accusation. Let’s have a listen…

Yep, that seals it for me. Does that mean “The Kids Aren’t Alright” isn’t any good then? No, of course not. In fact, it was seen as a return to form by their fanbase who had been with the band before those two aforementioned chart busting hits came along and you can understand why. It just has a much rawer edge to it. As with Shania Twain earlier, the lyrics had a deeper message than might have been expected from a song with such a contrived title being about the fates of the people who lead singer Dexter Holland had grown up around in his home town of Garden Grove, California including unwanted pregnancy, drug addiction, unemployment and suicide.

Just a word about the studio audience for this one which seems to include some very committed moshers and a least one crowd surfer. This wasn’t standard for a TOTP crowd was it? Were they specially invited members of The Offspring fan club or had they been given specific instructions by the floor managers to behave like that?

Oh. My. God. Is this really what passed for music in the Autumn of 1999? I speak of “The Launch” by DJ Jean which thankfully I seem to have blanked from my memory banks. This ‘track’ was huge in Ibiza apparently (Gail Porter says so anyway) where its trance-infused house beats (I’ve clearly pinched that from something online as I have no idea what I’m talking about) hit big time, hooked around a NASA themed rocket launch countdown. It’s utter garbage. Clearly the staging of this nonsense was going to require some thought as the three dancers on stage couldn’t carry it by themselves and to be fair to the TOTP producers, they do try something different with swirling camera angles and tacked on filters but it doesn’t overly impress. I’m struck by two thoughts:

Why didn’t the dancers have space themed costumes on? DJ Jean seems to have some sort of astronaut outfit on.
Shouldn’t there have been a voice saying “We have lift off!” after the countdown and “Ignition” parts?

“The Launch” topped the Dutch charts (DJ Jean was from Holland) but fell one place short of that peak in the UK. According to his Wikipedia biography, Jean used to DJ in a club called iT in Amsterdam in the early 90s but as with the Isis club in Nottingham, it doesn’t exist anymore after burning down. There’s got to be a line in there somewhere about burning down the house surely?

Before we get to the No 1, a quick word about the acts that are actually on the show in person in these tour locations as I’m not convinced the quality of them makes admission to these shows the hot ticket that the BBC would have had us believe. If you were in Nottingham this particular week, you would have witnessed Martine McCutcheon, Shaft, A1 and DJ Jean. (Enrique Iglesias, Shania Twain, and The Offspring were presumably recorded in a different studio somewhere or at Elstree weeks prior before the studio renovations started). The previous week in Brighton, it was Shaft (again), Moloko, A-Teens, Ocean Colour Scene and Stereophonics. I’d say maybe two of those eight acts would have piqued my interest at the time.

So, Lou Bega is still at No 1 with “Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)”. Again, he’s not in Nottingham but it’s not the video either so it must have been recorded in a BBC studio…somewhere.

In 2000, Bega recorded a version of the track for Disney which was much more sanitised and replaced the girls names in the lyrics with those of Disney characters. The line “A little bit of Donald is all I need” has perhaps more resonance in the present day than could ever have been imagined back then…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Martine McCutcheon	I’ve Got You	Nope
2	Shaft	(Mucho Mambo) Sway	Of course not
3	Enrique Iglesias	Bailamos	Nah
4	Shania Twain	Man! I Feel Like A Woman	NEVER!
5	A1	Summertime Of Our Lives	God no!
6	The Offspring	The Kids Aren’t Alright	I did not
7	DJ Jean	The Launch	Just awful – no
8	Lou Bega	Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…	No

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002v4qm/top-of-the-pops-10091999

TOTP 03 SEP 1999

Posted on 22 Days Ago by 80stastic

We’re into the second instalment of the peripatetic version of TOTP whilst the BBC’s Elstree Studios are being renovated. This episode was filmed in Event II, Brighton and to reflect the travelling nature of the show at this time, there’s an updated logo with the original one having the words “On Tour” superimposed in the middle of it where “Of The” would normally be. It’s a nice little touch. Gail Porter is our host again and she’s got a smart new angular haircut this week. Thankfully for this blogger, we’re back to the usual eight songs this week as opposed to last week’s bumper edition which had eleven. Only one of those eight have been on the show before though so I best get on with it…

In late Summer/ early Autumn of 1999, the UK went Latin pop music crazy with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin riding high in our charts. Rather than peter out, the trend variegated and we saw a new strain of the genre dominating the Top 40. I say ‘new’ but it was actually very retro – mambo. No chart was more mambo-fied than this week’s with the top two positions both being of that musical persuasion. We start with the song in the runners up position from Shaft. Nothing to do with the 1971 blaxploitation crime thriller film starring Richard Roundtree nor even the people behind the 1992 Toytown techno hit “Roobarb And Custard”; no, this Shaft were the electronic production duo Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland who had done remixes for the likes of Björk and Alison Limerick under the moniker of Skeewiff before changing their name to Shaft and turning their attention to the 1954 hit “Sway” by Dean Martin or rather the Rosemary Clooney version of it. A remix of that recording was used to soundtrack a TV ad for London radio station Kiss FM which led to a demand for the track to be released. There was only one problem – the holders of the copyright to the Clooney version wouldn’t give permission for the release so Rizzo and Ireland drafted in a session singer to re-record it at the death and hey presto!…a massive hit was born.

“Mucho Mambo (Sway)” was a pretty nasty thing, tacky in the extreme that did nothing except destroy the legacy of “Sway”’s previous incarnations but the UK record buying public didn’t give a fig about any of that. As for the staging of this one, it was pretty straightforward I guess what with Mambo music being a high energy genre and involving distinctive dance steps. I’m not sure why they thought Richard Ayoade would be able to pull off those moves though…

The Latin vibe continues with another outing for “Mi Chico Latino” by Geri Halliwell which, despite being deposed from the top of the charts this week is, as Gail Porter points out in her intro, riding high in the charts at No 3. Sticking with the numbers game, I hadn’t picked up on this the first time this performance was broadcast but Geri had surrounded herself on stage with two drummers (Adam Ant style), three Spanish guitar players and five Sun-tanned backing dancers. That seems like a lot of people for such a slight tune – we’re all agreed that it was just a rip-off of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” aren’t we? – or maybe that was the point and a distraction was needed.

Geri’s next release would see her engaged in one of the more high profile chart battles of the 90s when her single “Lift Me Up” went head to head with former Spice Girl band mate Emma Bunton who duetted with Tin Tin Out on a cover of Eddie Brickell’s “What I Am” but that’s all for a future post.

One of the most prolific bands of the second half of the 90s next as Ocean Colour Scene clock up their ninth straight hit with “Profit In Peace”. Two thirds of those nine went Top 10 – I know, I was surprised as well. This track was the lead single released from fourth studio album “One From The Modern” and is an anthem for our times, no more so than literally the present day what with the state of the world and the people in charge.

I have two memories about this track neither of which relate to when it was actually in the charts at the time. Firstly, about a year after it had been released, I’m sure it turned up on a promotional CD given away free with a breakfast cereal (can’t remember which one) along with a few other recent past hits though the only one I can recall is “Disco Down” by Shed Seven. In the days before streaming platforms, I played that disc a few times on my portable CD player on my walk to work trying to convince myself that I was still on my way to spend my day in an Our Price store surrounded by music rather than the reality which was being on my way to life as a civil servant at the Land Registry surrounded by paperwork and file plans. The second recollection is seeing Ocean Colour Scene perform the song when I caught them live in an open air gig in Hull in August of 2024 when Embrace and Cast were also on the bill. It was a good gig and yes, I do feel very old.

Still with Another Level?! If I was surprised by the amount of Ocean Colour Scene hits there were, I’m flabbergasted by how many times this lot were in the charts. This was their seventh consecutive hit (including one No 1) in just over 18 months and for this one they’d teamed up with R&B artist TQ of ”Westside” fame. In truth, “Summertime” is a bit of a mess. Somehow it doesn’t seem to scan properly as if the beats can’t accommodate the lyrics. Ah yes, those lyrics – I have no idea what a lot of them mean so I had to google them. Here’s just a few of my findings which I’m not claiming are definitive and if I’ve got them wrong I apologise:

“Damn i think i gotta a hangover
Too much mo? the night before”

Songwriters: Douglas B. Rasheed / Terrance Quaites Summertime lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

‘mo’: In urban slang it stands for ‘modus operandi’ for example, to describe a person’s known style in dating, working, or socializing (e.g., “His MO is to ghost after two dates”)

“And everybody on the westside is real high off the la la (in the streets)
And we looking for the ta ta cause they pop out when it gets hot (everybody)”

Songwriters: Douglas B. Rasheed / Terrance Quaites Summertime lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

‘la la’: Urban slang for a fun-loving, carefree girl who lives in the moment and doesn’t take life too seriously. However, “Lala bop” is something different altogether.

‘ta ta’: Probably not surprising in the context of the lyrics above but apparently it means breasts (e.g. “She was wearing a low-cut top that showed off her ta-tas.”)

The staging of it doesn’t help with the initial shot of the group with four backing dancers all in a line shuffling about looks like a very loose rehearsal. Maybe that was the look they were going for to promote the vibe (hate that word!) of the song? Then there’s TQ himself bounding on stage halfway through, all over excited – if Tigger was a rapper….

Not every dance tune around this time was all about Mambo. Here’s Moloko with a huge club anthem but, as with many such hits, it took a remix and a rerelease to secure its high chart position and sales. When “Sing It Back” was originally out to buy in the shops, it was the version from the album “I Am Not A Doctor” which yielded a disappointing peak just outside the Top 40 (No 45 if you’re counting). A remix was sought out by the band and Todd Terry (the man behind Everything But The Girl’s monster anthem “Missing”) was their first choice but, unhappy with his treatment of the track, they turned to Boris Dlugosch and it was his version that became their biggest hit to date when it peaked at No 4. To paraphrase Mel Smith on his 1987 Christmas hit with Kim Wilde, it’s an almighty groove, with an almost Chic like guitar riff and Róisín Murphy’s distinctive, alluring vocals beckoning the listener/audience to join in. I always wondered why it wasn’t called “Bring It Back” as in the first line of the chorus but have since discovered that it was inspired by Róisín’s time spent frequenting the Body And Soul nightclub in New York where the resident DJ would play a lot of tracks with vocals in them and would fade down the volume so the assembled throng of clubbers could literally sing the words back to him. Fairly obvious really. “Sing It Back” would catapult Moloko into a different league of exposure (it was a UK and US Dance No 1) not least due to the track’s ubiquity – it reportedly featured on over 100 compilation albums.

Although Moloko were a duo, Róisín performs completely solo here with no sign of partner Mark Bryson but with all respect to him, nobody noticed due to Róisín’s choice of stage costume. A potentially unforgiving silver catsuit held no fear for her as she looked and sounded like a star with her image topped off with a retro yet stylish Purdey style haircut. If Joanna Lumley had been in Barbarella instead of Jane Fonda, she would surely have looked like the Moloko singer does in this performance. Failing that, if they ever remade Gerry Anderson sci-fi TV series UFO, all Róisín needed to add to her look was a purple wig.

Oh my dear God! What was this?! This was wrong on multiple levels! As well as Mambo fever, 1999 saw a resurgence in ABBA mania. As an appetiser, we’d already had the “Thank ABBA for the Music” medley by Steps, Tina Cousins, Cleopatra, B*Witched and Billie which originated from the BRIT Awards show that year and turned into a No 4 hit. This was quickly followed by the opening of the now legendary ABBA musical Mama Mia! which resulted in the seven year old compilation “ABBA Gold” returning to No 1 in the charts. Now, I have no problem with the Swedish superstars – they were part of my early childhood in our house – but that’s not what I’m referring to. No, what I have a problem with is A*Teens who were a group of Swedish 14-16 year olds put together to record late 90s versions of ABBA hits with the aim of fleecing the world with them. This was a scandalous practice it seemed to me to cash in on the renewed interest in ABBA. Why did anyone need newer versions of those classic pop hits and who thought having them sung by teenage kids was the way to go about it?! I mean, it’s not quite Minipops territory but it was distasteful and unedifying. Somehow though, this poorly thought out project was successful. Their debut single “Mamma Mia” was, rather predictably, the best selling single of 1999 in Sweden and a hit all round Europe (including in the UK where it peaked at No 12). Somewhere, Simon Fuller was sat at home thinking “Hmm. A junior version of S Club 7. That could sell…”

Their success would continue for a couple of years before petering out into the new millennium. In a case of history eating itself, A*Teens reformed this year to compete for the chance to represent Sweden at Eurovision but they finished 7th out of 12 entries in the Melodifestivalen 2026 final to find the ultimate entrant. Mamma Mia indeed! I have to admit that I didn’t get to the end of this one – it was making me feel a bit queasy.

Some proper music now courtesy of Stereophonics who are into their fourth single released from sophomore album “Performance And Cocktails”. “I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio” was, as Gail Porter regales us in her intro, written by Kelly Jones after having had a dream in which George Harrison and Ringo Starr were singing that title in front of Jones’ parents’ house. So, a bit like John Lennon’s fabricated tale about the origin of the name The Beatles. He famously said that it came to him in a dream in which a man appeared on a flaming pie and said “From this day on you are Beatles with an ‘A’”. Could that story have been lurking around in Kelly Jones’ subconscious which triggered his dream?

Anyway, the song sounds a bit like something Noel Gallagher would have written in the latter period of Oasis and therefore lacks the punch of singles like “The Bartender And The Thief” and “Pick A Part That’s New”. Not a bad track just not one of their best. One final single from the album would follow before the band would return with their second No 1 album “Just Enough Education To Perform” in 2001.

P.S. Is it just me or does Kelly have a look of Robbie Williams about him in this performance?

We end as we began – in Mambo mood. The origins of “Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of…)” by Lou Bega stretched back longer than this particular chart. First of all, there’s the fact that it was based on the old Pérez Prado track originally recorded in 1949. Remarkably for an artist that had been dead for 10 years and was associated with one very distinct genre of music, this was the second time in four years that Prado’s presence had been felt in a huge hit after “Guaglione” was a No 2 record in 1995 following its use in a Guinness advert. Fast forward to 1999 and here he was again being used as the structure for Lou Bega’s worldwide No 1 but who was Lou Bega? Well, apart from being a definitive One Hit Wonder in the UK (one chart topper then nothing ever again), he was/is a German singer born to an Italian mother and Ugandan father who discovered Latin music whilst living in Miami. Returning to Munich, he would get involved with a manager and two producers, a collaboration which would lead to “Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of)”.

Secondly, there’s the fact that the track had been around for ages before its entry at the top of the chart. Indeed, it had been in the Top 40 for three weeks getting as high as No 31 prior to this point. How so? Well, it was the same story as we saw recently with ATB’s hit “9PM (Till I Come)” which charted on sales of import copies alone ahead of its official UK release. Once said release was made available, the import version was declared null and void for chart compilation purposes and disappeared from view altogether.

So that’s its origin story but was it any good? I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that I couldn’t stand it. I just found it hard to appreciate and seemed designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Was I being a music snob? Quite probably but I’ve always tried to be honest in my nearly 10 years of writing this blog so I’m not about to stop that with the end now only a handful of posts away. However, I did appreciate this rendition of it in the marvellous The Royle Family:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shaft	Mucho Mambo (Sway)	I did not
2	Geri Halliwell	Mi Chico Latino	Nah
3	Ocean Colour Scene	Profit In Peace	No but I had that breakfast cereal promo CD…
4	Another Level / TQ	Summertime	Nope
5	Moloko	Sing It Back	No bui I think my wife may have
6	A*Teens	Mama Mia	NEVER!
7	Stereophonics	I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio	No but I had the album
8	Lou Bega	Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of…)	NO!

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vdb6/top-of-the-pops-03091999

TOTP 26 AUG 1999

Posted on 28 Days Ago by 80stastic

Right, the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule has gone tits up for the second time recently. After the Gouryella controversy a couple of weeks back causing us to miss two reruns of the grand old show, we’ve now just missed three in a row and suddenly find ourselves at the end of August 1999. This, of course, is just one of the consequences of the fall out of the sacking by the BBC of Scott Mills from his Radio 2 Breakfast Show job. It might seem quite minor compared to some of the other repercussions in the fallout from the whole saga but the online TOTP community picked up on it immediately, quickly predicting that any episodes hosted by Mills would now not see the light of day. That the final three shows he presented were consecutive has engineered this huge leap in broadcast dates. So what did we miss? Let’s have a look shall we?

My word that’s slim pickings! There’s at least three (I’m guessing dance acts) that I’ve no idea about at all. Then there’s repeat showings of Ricky Martin and D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay and that Ronan Keating No 1 from Notting Hill. I can live without all of those. The Groove Armada track is a bit of a classic and I’d have been interested in the Skunk Anansie single but that’s it. Two out of eight for me on that one. How about the following week?

Dear oh dear. It’s worse if that were possible! There’s Ronan again plus repeats of D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay and Five plus three dance tracks I have zero memory of. Travis? It’s OK but I don’t think it’s one of their better tracks. Basement Jaxx? So possibly two out of eight again. Possibly. The week after?

Well, that’s a bit better. I like that track by The Divine Comedy and Super Furry Animals were always interesting at least. I couldn’t be doing with Bran Van 3000 which I just found annoying (more on that later) and Westlife can do one as well. There a repeat of Travis and I have no interest in Puff Daddy or Mary J. Blige. That leaves Texas and Feeder who were OK I guess. How many’s that? Four out of nine? I’m almost starting to feel grateful to the BBC for their reaction to the whole Scott Mills thing.

All of this lands us at the back end of August 1999 and this episode also requires some explanation. For a start, it’s another of those TOTP on tour shows and once again it comes from Scotland and (once again) it’s presented by “the wee, local lass” (as she describes herself) Gail Porter. The last time the BBC did this was back in May when the show was filmed in Archaos nightclub in Glasgow as part of BBC Music Live 1999. So why were they doing it again? Here’s the ever excellent @TOTPFacts with the answer:

This was the first of eight editions of #TOTP in the Top Of The Pops On Tour series, from The Revolution, Edinburgh. Over the next seven weeks the show would visit Brighton, Nottingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and Swansea before returning to Elstree studio.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 10, 2026

So there you go. To start the tour off, this show was extended to 45 minutes and includes 11 artists. Right, after all that preamble, let’s get to the music and we start with Apollo Four Forty and their ninth of ten hits “Stop The Rock”. Now this lot wouldn’t normally have been my bag and indeed weren’t a lot of the time but you (and I) had to admire their creativity. Having already had hits based around legendary drummer Gene Krupa, a Van Halen guitar riff and a John Williams composed TV theme, here they were turning to the masters of three chord chug-rock Status Quo for their latest smash. “Stop The Rock” takes inspiration from the Quo’s 1974 hit “Caroline” and is quite the noise but noise in a good way – it’s in your face certainly but with a sense of excitement rather than foreboding or discomfort. Apparently, the guy on vocals here is one Ian Hoxley aka Mary Byker of ‘grebo’ band Gaye Bikers On Acid who I do remember though I’m not as familiar with their catalogue as those of other members of that scene like Pop Will Eat Itself and the Wonder Stuff. Though undoubtedly a dance track, it is refreshing to see “Stop The Rock” actually performed by a band with guitars no less and thereby stopping the rot of the usual staged nonsense that accompanied hits of that genre on the show (i.e. female vocalist out front, two nerdy blokes on keyboards and some synchronised backing dancers to give it a whiff of visual appeal).

As mentioned earlier, the last time that TOTP was recorded outside of London it was also in Scotland and as such the BBC made sure that at least two of the bands performing live and in the venue were Scottish. To this end we had Travis play their newest chart offering “Driftwood” and Texas with their latest single “Summer Son”. Except the use of the word ‘latest” was rather disingenuous. Yes, it would become their latest single but not until it was released nearly three months later! I commented in the post for that TOTP in Glasgow from May 1999 that it felt like executive producer Chris Cowey was really trying to shoehorn Texas into the show just to maintain a theme. I’m sure it was all more complicated than that with various talks, meetings and commitments made by the BBC and the band’s’ management team but that’s what it looked like. As I knew there would he another Texas appearance coming for when the single was actually released, I didn’t say too much about “Summer Sun” the song in that first post. As it turned out, the first opportunity to review it was missed when that happened during a Scott Mills hosted show as mentioned earlier. However, they were back on our screens just a week later with the start of the TOTP on Tour series of programmes beginning in Edinburgh. Well, if Cowey could get them on three months before the single was released, he wasn’t going to miss the chance to get them on the show when “Summer Son” was legitimately in the charts was he?

So, the actual song…yeah, it’s OK. As with the rest of the “Hush” album, it didn’t deviate much from the formula that brought them so much success with “White On Blonde” but having waited their whole career for such huge sales, you couldn’t really expect them to throw the blueprint out overnight. The official video that accompanied it featuring Sharleen Spiteri cavorting about with a half dressed bloke in a bed and was considered too provocative for many broadcasters and was certainly never going to be shown on pre-watershed BBC. It’s on YouTube if you want to see what all the fuss was about but it seems very tame by today’s standards.

A quality tune up next and one of the best that the artist behind it ever recorded to my ears. Faced with the prospect of delivering the dreaded ‘difficult third* album’ hurdle, Supergrass made light of the fabled obstacle by trailing it with two quality singles. First came “Pumping On Your Stereo” in the May before following it up with “Moving” which was perhaps even better. The almost acoustic opening was a clever move to intrigue the listener by presenting them with a non-typical Supergrass sound before the funky meat of the track kicked in. I thought it was cleverly constructed though some reviewers criticised it for not being seamless enough in that you could see the joins of the two parts of the track as if it was two different songs superglued together. Personally, I don’t see an issue with that. One of the most lauded songs ever is exactly that. “A Day In The Life” has the Lennon penned “I read the news today” heavy style verses whilst McCartney supplied the more upbeat “Woke up fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head” middle part and that worked perfectly.

*Is the difficult album the third one or the second? I’m never quite sure.

Talking of working perfectly, “Moving” was used across the ending credits of the marvellously entertaining film East Is East and it was an inspired choice both sonically and visually. My mate Robin attended a premiere for East Is East as his sister is in the film – she played the part of Stella, the blonde girl on the film poster who had designs on Jimi Mistry’s character Tariq. Whilst at the event, Robin met the film’s director Damien O’Donnell and he congratulated him on the movie, especially the music featured in it, highlighting the choice to include “Moving”. Damien had to admit that he’d had very little to do with the music decisions and that’s me being a supergrass, outing a film director’s lack of input to his own film. Well, sort of, alright?

After the established practice of how TOTP staged a dance act in the late 90s was destabilised by Apollo 440 at the top of the show, by the fourth performance in, were already back to the status quo (see what I did there?). Who the deuce were Binary Finary?! Well, I could give you the names of the trio behind this project but frankly who cares? Look them up yourself on Wikipedia if you really must. Their hit was called “1999”…or was it? You see, this trance track had already been a No 24 hit the previous year when it was called…yes…”1998”! Remixed, rereleased and renamed it would go to No 11 the second time around. Binary Finary would pull off this trick of rehashing and retitling again in 2000 but we’d all got bored of it then and it peaked at No 84.

Obviously there was nothing down for me in “1999” but I did note that, in an unusual turn of events, although reverting to the normal staging for a dance act, there were more anonymous blokes behind keyboards on stage than there were female dancers for once (note dancers not vocalists as the track had no lyrics). Oh and that link by Gail Porter about getting tickets to see TOTP on tour? That was all a bit contrived wasn’t it? Nobody was calling the show ‘TOTP 1999’, tour or not – a very clunkily constructed segue and no mistake.

Staying with Gail, she now informs us that although “Bugs” is the second hit by Hepburn, they haven’t actually made it into the TOTP studio yet. She’s right you know as the all female group, just like Texas, also appeared on that BBC Music Live 1999 broadcast from Archaos nightclub in Glasgow back in May which was their debut on the show. They would eventually get to that hallowed ground of the studio of the Beeb’s legendary music show in 2000 to perform their third single “Deep Deep Down”.

Back to “Bugs” though and it was more of that uptempo, pop/rock sound that they gave us with first hit “I Quit”. Although a polished production, it was designed to sound a bit more kick ass than something like “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden hence the almost “Smells Like Teen Spirit” intro before it morphs into something you could imagine The Rembrandts releasing. In fact, just like “I’ll Be There For You” being the theme to Friends, Hepburn did appear on the soundtrack to an American TV series – not a comedy what with the “Don’t want to die like bugs on the windshield” line but Buffy The Vampire Slayer which made a bit more sense. Maybe.

As a little footnote, do you think their rivals in the all female guitar based band stakes – Thunderbugs – were pleased or pissed off at the title of this Hepburn hit? Pleased with the potential spin off publicity or pissed off for partly nicking their name?

Similar to Supergrass earlier, TLC were on to their third studio album as the end of the 90s beckoned and also like Supergrass, the first two singles released from it (“Fanmail”) would garner a reputation as some of their finest work for many people. Following long term chart dweller “No Scrubs” was never going to be easy but with “Unpretty”, they made a beautiful job of it. A second consecutive US No 1, it would also consolidate their success over here by peaking at No 6. To maintain the Supergrass comparison, “Unpretty” also had an almost acoustic feel to it which actually made for a much more mainstream sound and was an ocean away from the likes of hip hop debut hit “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”. This was almost an orthodox rock/pop song.

Based around a poem written by Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins about her incandescent reaction to men calling women “fat pigs” on an episode of Ricki Lake, it would go on to receive two Grammy nominations. As for this ‘exclusive’ performance, it was clearly recorded in an empty room judging by the fact that there’s no cutaway shots to any studio audience members. Well, I guess you can’t get any more exclusive than having nobody there.

When in Edinburgh…Chris Cowey doubles down (literally) on the Scottishness of this show by having Texas perform a second song for no other discernible reason other than than that they are, indeed, Scottish and…well…there. “Tell Me The Answer” is the second track from their fifth studio album “The Hush” and listening to it, you can kind of understand why it was never released as a single. It’s got a nice enough if unoriginal sound to it but it seems like it’s in the wrong key for Sharleen’s voice to me judging by her almost falsetto vocals in this acoustic (there’s that word again) version. It’s not just me is it? Is she struggling to make those notes? Normally her voice is pretty on point but not here.

“The Hush” became their second No 1 album of three (if you include their Greatest Hits collection from 2000) and would spend 12 non-consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 going three times platinum in the UK. It was at No 4 in the charts at the time of this TOTP.

So despite the Scott Mills induced skipping of three episodes which meant that I was spared two appearances of D.J. Jurgen Presents Deejay Alice, I’m not away scott free as here they are again for a fourth time on the show with “Better Off Alone”. Hell’s teeth! In fairness to Cowey on this one, it did spend nearly two months inside the Top 10 including three consecutive weeks at No 2. For this performance, they’ve dropped the…erm…more elderly lady on the keyboards who appeared on the 30th of July show so we left with the trio of vocalist and two backing dancers only.

Now, I have tried to go forensic on this one and I really think that one of the dancers is not the same person who performed in that previous show. In fact, it didn’t require that much detailed investigation as the singer and other dancer are both wearing the same clothes whereas the new woman has a totally different outfit to the girl in that 30th July episode. I’m not sure what any of this means other than to suggest such dance hits were all about the beats and not the visuals.

Just like Texas, Supergrass are allowed to perform two songs in this specially extended TOTP and they give us the track “Mary” which would become the next single released from their third, eponymous album. Unlike the other two singles, it would underperform significantly chart-wise peaking at No 36. There are reasons for this I think. Firstly, is the fact that the album had already been in the shops for two months by the time “Mary” was released so that could well have diluted potential sales. Secondly, its promo video, an homage to Hammer Horror movies, was considered too scary for broadcast (also like Texas) and had to be heavily edited with the offending scenes replaced with, bizarrely, pictures of onions. All those shenanigans can’t have helped the single’s promotion. Thirdly, and most significantly I feel, although it’s a great track, it was a strange choice as a single. Nowhere near as radio friendly as its two predecessors, it’s definitely more of an album track to my ears with its “Ah-ya-ya” shouted chorus and heavy guitars. “Mary” would be the last hit of the 90s for Supergrass, drawing a rather unsatisfactory line under that era of their career.

P.S. “Mary” would provide lyrics that seemed to be the reverse of the band’s biggest hit “Alright”. Look at these lines:

“I like to push you over into my stream
I like to point out that her teeth are green”

Songwriters: Michael Quinn / Gareth Coombes / Robert Coombes / Daniel Robert Goffey

Mary lyrics © Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd.

“Teeth are green”! I thought Supergrass kept their teeth nice and clean!

A classic one hit wonder next…or were they? The chart record of Bran Van 3000 (or “Bread Van 3000” as Mark and Lard used to call them) presents an unusual question – can you be a one hit wonder if you’ve had two hits but both said hits were with the same song? It’s a conundrum for sure. Anyway, here are the facts about “Drinking In L.A.”; make your own mind up:

Released June 1998 – peaked at No 34
Released August 1999 – peaked at No 3
No other UK Top 40 hits

What d’ya reckon then? One hit wonder or not? I guess there’s no right answer just as there’s no definitive opinion as to whether “Drinking In L.A.” was any good or not what with musical taste being subjective and all that. For what it’s worth, here’s my thoughts on both questions:

Yes, they are a one hit wonder because they only have one song that anybody (except superfans) know them for.
I really didn’t like “Drinking In L.A.” for quite a niche reason.

Ah, so what was that niche reason you ask? Well, it was one tiny element of the track that only lasted about two seconds and that was the spoken word intro that says “Hi, my name’s Stereo Mike”. For some reason, that little snippet used to annoy the hell out of me. There was plenty about chart music in 1999 to be offended by but those five words used to wind me up something rotten. When I made the mistake of letting my colleagues at the Our Price I was working in know this, they used to put “Drinking In L.A.” on the shop stereo and keep pressing the play button constantly so that “Hi, my name’s Stereo Mike” would sound on repeat. I still can’t get past that intro.

If I could, what would I say about the rest of the song? Probably that it was a bit of a slacker anthem similar to “Loser” by Beck which possibly contributed to its popularity but that the real reason for its ascent up the charts second time around was this advert:

Oh and that has there ever been another hit in UK chart history that features the word ‘bupkis’?

After all the hype and expectation and then anti-climax surrounding the release of Geri Halliwell’s debut solo single “Look At Me”, there presumably was some anxiety lurking in the offices of Geri’s management team and record company. The next single had to be bigger which meant topping the chart. Despite those aforementioned representatives of Halliwell wanting “Lift Me Up” or “Bag It Up” to be the next release, it was “Mi Chico Latino” that made the cut and, lo and behold, it flamenco-ed its way straight to No 1.

Now let’s address the two elephants in the room straightaway – was this just a rewrite of “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna from her 1986 album “True Blue” and was Geri just jumping on the Latin pop phenomenon of the time? ‘Yes’ and ‘possibly’ would be my answers to those questions. There’s no doubt about the first one but in Geri’s defence re: the second, she reckons she wrote it the previous year before the Latin pop trend really took off in 1999. Who am I to give a definitive verdict on that? What I can say is that her lyrics for this one seem to be a little confused. Whilst there is heavy usage of Spanish throughout like “Donde esta el hombre con fuego en la sangre” and “Donde esta mi chico latino” and a whole middle eight in that language (supposedly to pay homage to Geri’s Spanish mother), there is also the lyric “Find my love my dolce vita” which features four times. “Dolce Vita” is Italian not Spanish surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Apollo Four Forty	Stop The Rock	I did not
2	Texas	Summer Son	Didn’t happen
3	Supergrass	Moving	No but I had the album
4	Binary Finary	1999	It was hardly Prince was it? No
5	Hepburn	Bugs	Negative
6	TLC	Unpretty	Nope
7	Texas	Tell Me The Answer	N/A
8	D.J. Jurgen Presents Deejay Alice	Better Off Alone	Big no
9	Supergrass	Mary	See 3 above
10	Bran Van 3000	Drinking In L.A.	Couldn’t get past that intro – no
11	Geri Halliwell	Mi Chico Latino	Nah

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00fsvhp/top-of-the-pops-26081999

TOTP 30 JUL 1999

Posted on April 15 by 80stastic

Of the eight acts in this particular TOTP’s running order, it could be claimed that three were the equivalent of elder statesmen compared to their young upstart chart counterparts. They’d probably be described as ‘heritage’ acts today or, if they were football supporters then “legacy’ fans. Back in 1999, individually they might have been defined as ‘making a comeback’, ‘having an unexpected hit’ and ‘business as usual’. Who am I talking about? Let’s find out…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with the artist having an unexpected hit. Up to this point in the 90s, Elvis Costello had only had one Top 40 hit throughout the whole decade – 1994’s “Sulky Girl” which made No 22. It wasn’t much of a return given that, in that period, he’d released three studio albums under his own name, one with The Attractions, a soundtrack, a collaboration with Burt Bacharach and a one off project with The Brodsky Quartet. To be fair to Costello, as far as I can tell, that album haul only resulted in ten singles being released but even so, a 90% failure rate for making the Top 40 seems like a very big number. Maybe his fanbase just weren’t that interested in buying singles – all of those albums listed above charted with two even going Top 5 so their was definitely still an appetite for his work just not the bite size versions.

Anyway, suddenly Elvis had a Top 20 single (his first for 16 years and, so far, his last) with a cover version of “She”, the 1974 No 1 from French/Armenian singer Charles Aznavour. Taken from the soundtrack to Notting Hill, both the original and Costello’s cover featured in the film. Bizarrely though, in the US release, only Elvis’s take on it was used as American test audiences didn’t react well to the Aznavour version. Maybe it wasn’t such an outlandish decision after all though as Costello’s vocal is just about perfect for the song, as if he was born to sing it. For many people, especially those not familiar with the original, his might even be considered the definitive version. In Japan for example, it is an absolute highlight of his live concerts.

The performance here was the first time Elvis has been on the show for five years and, aside from a replay showing of “Oliver’s Army” in a 2005 episode (for some reason), it remains his last. Although it’s a great version, it somehow seems a shame that Costello’s last hit and TOTP appearance were all about a cover rather than one of his original compositions.

Despite being a well established boy band with a string of hit singles and an adoring, teenage girl fanbase behind them, Five were still lacking that one thing that would put them up there with the likes of Take That and Boyzone – a No 1 single. Yes, their debut album had topped the charts but to cement them in the consciousness of the general public, they needed the profile that a cut-through-to-the-mainstream, instantly recognisable hit could bring them. Take That had, amongst others, “Back For Good” and Boyzone had “No Matter What”. Could “If Ya Gettin’ Down” do the same for Five? Not quite. It would debut and peak at No 2 meaning their last three singles had missed the top spot by a single place. They should have changed their name to Two.

As with the first of those No 2s “Everybody Get Up”, “If Ya Gettin’ Down” (make your minds up lads, up or down?) was based around a hit from the 80s. Whilst the former utilised Joan Jett And The Blackhearts’ version of “ I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll”, the latter sampled Indeep’s “Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life”. It worked pretty well to be fair but couldn’t hope to match the explosive power of “Everybody Get Up” which I’d actually rather enjoyed. That had featured Abz and J at the forefront what with all the rapping in it and it was a similar story with “If Ya Gettin’ Down”. With the slower tracks, Richie and Scott did the vocal heavy lifting. I’m not entirely sure what Sean did. Was he just there to do some dancing? If so, they clearly didn’t trust him even with just that judging by the battalion of backing dancers up there on stage with the band.

Five would finally get their No 1 with their next single release “Keep On Movin’”, the first of three chart toppers with the other two being a collaboration with Queen on a rendition of their anthem “We Will Rock You” and a track called “Let’s Dance” which thankfully wasn’t a David Bowie cover.

WHO??! The 3 Jays?! No, I’ve got nothing, zilch, zero, nada so I googled their name. Top result? A pub in Clacton. Says it all really. Or does it? After a bit more searching, I found out that the guys behind The 3 Jays (Jamie White, Jim Lee and Jeff Patterson – the three ‘J’s – geddit?) were also variously involved in the following chart hits:

Jeremy Healy & Amos – “Stamp!” – No 11 – 1996
PF Project – “Choose Life” – No 6 – 1997
Tzant – “Sounds of Wickedness” – No 11 – 1998
Mirrorball – “Given Up” – No 12 – 1999

Hmm. So maybe there was more to them than I first thought. Actually, maybe not as “Feeling It Too” sounded like it was just jumping on the sonic bandwagon that was popularised by Phats & Small and indeed, there was a remix by that pair of “Feeling It Too” available on the single.

Now, there was an 80s band called The Three Johns that my mate Robin liked who were nothing like the The 3 Jays being, as they were, a post-punk, indie rock band with politically charged, anti-Thatcher/anti far right lyrics. I’m betting they never did or would play that pub in Clacton whose MP, of course, is one Nigel Farage.

Next, that elder statesman act for whom another hit was just ‘business as usual’. How many albums do you reckon the Pet Shop Boys have released in their career? I’m just talking studio albums not Best Ofs or Remix compilations. Fifteen is the answer over a 40 year career. That’s one every two and a half years or so. That sounds, if not prolific then exceptionally consistent. A deeper dive into their discography (their actual discography and not their first ever Best Of from 1991) shows though that the first four came between 1986 and 1990 – just about one a year which is prolific I would argue. After that initial burst of youthful creativity, they settled down to a fairly regular release schedule of a studio album every three years. To this end, by 1999, “Nightlife” was released three years after their last album “Bilingual” which in turn came out three years after “Very” which was preceded by “Behaviour” three years earlier.

So what?” you may ask. It’s a valid question. Other than peaking my fascination with sequences (a run of football results has a similar effect on me), I’m not sure why I went down that route. Oh, hang on, yes I do. It was to provide some context as to my personal engagement with the output of Neil and Chris. Having been a fan throughout the 80s and early 90s, by the end of that decade I was entering “meh” territory. Sadly, “I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More” wasn’t going to reactivate my interest. It’s not that it’s a terrible song (though its title does nearly enter terrible territory) it’s just that it was…well…yes, a bit “meh” really. It had all the components we’d come to expect from a Pet Shop Boys release but it doesn’t have enough about it to take its place aside some of the duo’s classic singles. As such, I would argue that it really isn’t one of them.

My affection for the Pet Shop Boys was reignited when I saw them live on their Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live tour a couple of years ago. I still can’t remember if they performed “I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More” though. Oh and I can’t not mention the backing dancers here. As with Five earlier, there’s loads of them but their number isn’t what requires comment. What was with all the juddering, arms-by-their-sides moves that made them look like fish literally out of water gaping for breath? Was it somehow linked to Chris and Neil’s onstage garb? The punk styled hair and shades look would also be used in the artwork for the album but what really grabs the attention is that they somehow invented the ‘slugs’ eyebrow phenomenon a good 20 years before it actually became a thing.

The 90s saw the UK record buying public display an insatiable appetite for Eurodance music. The charts were absolutely full of it meaning that yours truly has spent hours writing about a style of music I couldn’t really be doing with. At all. Throughout the decade artists such as Snap!, 2 Unlimited, Culture Beat, Haddaway, Corona, Ace Of Base and Dr. Alban had huge hits including No 1s (four of those names scored a chart topper!). And those were acts were just off the top of my head. I bet a deep dive of the internet would reveal many more…

*does a deep dive of the internet for Eurodance artists*

…Cappella, N-Trance, Real McCoy, Rednex, Sash!, T-Spoon, Vengaboys, Whigfield…oh God, I feel nauseous knowing how much of my life I’ve wasted commenting on all the above.

Yes! It’s a blogger epiphany! I’m not going to spend any more time in this blog on anymore Eurodance nonsense! Away with you….

…..oh, I just can’t can I? Bloody hell!! Right, D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay…so, this was a Dutch Eurodance project which, despite Jayne Middlemiss’s protestations, did have some DJs in it and was fronted by one Judith Anna Pronk. Their biggest hit of five was this one – “Better Off Alone” – which has accrued quite the retrospective legacy. For example, in March 2025, Billboard magazine ranked it as No 48 in their list of ‘The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time’. At the risk of sounding like my Dad when I myself was a teenager, it sounds like all those other Eurodance acts to my ears. And yes, I know Eurodance is a generic term and that there must have been loads of sub genres within it so to lump them all together is probably lazy but I really couldn’t care less.

As for this performance, there really was only two things that I noted about it. Firstly, and this is going to sound awful for which I apologise in advance but the lady at the back on the raised stage behind a keyboard (it actually looks a bit like an ironing board on first view), is it me or does she look a bit old to be a part of this nonsense? Secondly, and I’m certainly not complaining, but why did we only get 1:40 of the track which Wikipedia tells me the radio edit was 2:56 in length?

Definitely on the comeback trail are Madness who are making a second consecutive appearance to perform “Lovestruck”, their first new material single for thirteen years. I’m guessing this might be another of those double recording montages like we saw by Cher recently where the artist did two performances in the same one visit to the TOTP studio which are differentiated by a change of outfits just to convince the TV audience that they were recorded at least seven days apart. We know this as in last week’s performance Lee Thompson had a Bernie Clifton style jockey outfit on but this week he’s donned a…well…Jayne Middlemiss says it’s a worm costume but is it? It’s a bit green looking for a worm? A caterpillar maybe? Anyway, the abrupt cut away from our host to the performance is the conclusive piece of evidence for me that this was a second performance recorded in one sitting.

Suggs, of course, is a well known fellow fan of my beloved Chelsea even singing on the club’s 1997 FA Cup final song “Blue Day”. He nearly got sacked from the group in their early days for constantly missing Saturday afternoon band practice to go to Stamford Bridge to watch his team. I mention all of this because of the use of the word “Tottenham” in the lyrics. With Spurs being one of our fiercest rivals, I wonder how Suggs felt about singing those lines all these years? In fact, I wonder if he feels similar to another celebrity Chelsea fan who even refused to say the name ‘Tottenham’ in a recent Graham Norton interview? His reply to Graham’s question clearly riled another Graham…

Prick. pic.twitter.com/rAmbLkWBtE
— Graham Kingsbury (@grayjam68) February 13, 2026

Next up is one of the most pointless personal messages recorded by an artist for TOTP. The Chemical Brothers appear on screen to say this:

“Hi, we’re The Chemical Brothers…Sorry we can’t be there. Here’s some footage of us playing live in Red Rocks…Denver”

What was the point of that?! We then get said footage of them performing “Hey Boy Hey Girl” live in Red Rocks, Denver mixed in with shots of the TOTP audience dancing to it as it’s relayed on a big screen back in the studio. Again I say, “What was the point of that?!” Whatever you thought you were doing as executive producer Chris Cowey, it wasn’t working.

Despite the attempts by Five to put her off, Jayne Middlemiss just about gets through her intro to the No 1 which is Ricky Martin with “Livin’ la Vida Loca” for the third week which was quite the achievement in 1999 which saw many a one week chart topper. Perhaps even more impressive though was the fact that Martin became the first Puerto Rican artist in history to hit No 1 in the UK. It would go double platinum over here making it our sixth best selling single of the year. Also “Livin’ the Crazy Life” is another Ricky Martin who was the winner of the eighth series of The Apprentice in 2012. The show’s BBC website says of Ricky:

“By day Ricky is a successful recruitment manager operating across the UK science industries, and by night and weekend a heavy hitting professional wrestler”

Wow! If he doesn’t use “Livin’ la Vida Loca” as his entrance music he isn’t doing it right.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Elvis Costello	She	Yes I did for my wife who’s a big Elvis Costello fan
2	Five	If Ya Gettin’ Down	No thanks
3	The 3 Jays	Feeling It Too	Negative
4	Pet Shop Boys	I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More	Nah
5	D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay	Better Off Alone	Certainly not
6	Madness	Lovestruck	No
7	The Chemical Brothers	Hey Boy Hey Girl	Nope
8	Ricky Martin	Livin’ la Vida Loca	I did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002tl5r/top-of-the-pops-30071999

TOTP 23 JUL 1999

Posted on April 10 by 80stastic

What’s going on here then. Why have we missed two episodes? This hasn’t happened since the Summer of 1997 repeats and that whole Puff Daddy/ P Diddy business. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts has the answer:

BBC Four are skipping the 9 and 16 July 1999 editions of #TOTP due to a racial caricature. Selected highlights follow.
What that’s all about? it’s included in this video for a track by Dutch trance act Gouryella, featured in the chart rundowns: https://t.co/dHLYEk44yr
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 3, 2026

Well, there you go. Some in the online TOTP community were disgruntled at the decision by the BBC with the usual “couldn’t they have blurred it out?” comments and I understand their opinion especially as the Gouryella track was only featured during the chart rundown and not as a standalone showing of the video. Looking at the running order for these two missed episodes though, I can’t say I’m that disappointed not to have watched (and reviewed) some of the hits we missed. Look at this line up from the 9th July episode:

*The unofficial home of TOTP website: https://totparchive.co.uk/episode.php?id=1842*

I would say that there’s only Blur’s “Coffee & TV” and “Secret Smile” by Semisonic that piqued my interest and I certainly had no desire to review S Club 7 and Shania Twain again and I could live without Lolly as well. As for the 16th July episode…

*The unofficial home of TOTP website: https://totparchive.co.uk/episode.php?id=1843*

Manic Street Preachers? I can’t see much else. Well, I haven’t got it in me to dig out those shows on YouTube and review them I’m afraid (especially after seeing the running orders) so it’s full steam ahead with the 23rd July episode which is hosted by Jayne Middlemiss and we start with a new one from Steps called “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart”. After the almost novelty record debut of “5,6,7,8” and the faux ABBA schtick of their next two releases, their cover of “Tragedy” drew a line in the sand where the group had to taken seriously as a genuine chart entity when it finally made it to No 1 after an ascent that took weeks. The follow up “Better Best Forgotten” leapt to No 2 and so when “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart” was released as the lead track from second album “Steptacular”, its peak of No 2 was maybe the least that was expected of it. However…talk about playing it safe. Co-produced and co-written by Pete Waterman, this was just a retread of his PWL pomp. You could imagine Sonia (definitely not Kylie though) having recorded this tripe. Everything from its title to its sound was telegraphed. There was nothing new nor original here but maybe it was expecting too much for it to have been anything else.

As for the performance we see here, there’s something curious going on. At the end of the 2nd July show, as Gail Porter introduces the No 1 surrounded by the studio audience, front and centre in the crowd are Steps in the yellow outfits they wore in this, the 23rd July episode. Claire even has the same cowboy hat on. Yet more evidence that there was clearly a time delay between when performances were recorded and when they were broadcast. I assume that the artists had busy schedules and so everything had to be carefully timetabled to accommodate a TOTP studio appearance rather than just show the single’s promo video which executive producer Chris Cowey was very determined not to if he could help it.

Look at this! Madness were back! Had they actually been away though? OK, some clarification is required here. After initially disbanding in 1986, there had already been a number of returns by the nutty boys before this point. In 1988, four members of the original band reunited as The Madness and released one album and two singles none of which troubled the chart compilers. Two years on and now down to two original members, The Nutty Boys were formed before changing their name to Crunch! but there really was no appetite for just the pips of the band and they were soon compost. Everything changed though in 1992 when all seven members came back together to promote the Best Of compilation “Divine Madness” and to play the Madstock! festival in Finsbury Park to 75,000 people over two days. Legend has it that some nearby tower blocks perceptibly shook so loud was the music. Madness were officially a smash again with “Divine Madness” going to No 1 and triple platinum in the UK. Four singles were released from it three of which charted Meanwhile, Madstock was repeated three times as a biannual event.

So, why would I say that Madness were suddenly back in 1999? Ah well, this was the first time that they had released new material since that break up in 1986 when “(Waiting For) The Ghost Train” made No 18. “Lovestruck” was the lead single from “Wonderful”, their first studio album since 1985’s “Mad Not Mad” and listening back to it now, it could easily have been released in the 80s. It was trademark Madness with Mike Barson’s tinkling keyboards back in the fold for the first time since his departure in 1984. Despite sticking out in a 1999 Top 40 like a pork pie hat at Royal Ascot, “Lovestruck” returned Madness to the Top 10 for the first time since “The Sun And The Rain” in 1983. There were a lot of ‘first since’ milestones going on in this comeback!

I’m (love) struck by the unique singing style of Suggs on this track. It’s verges on non-singing which I guess you would almost describe as ‘speaking’ and yet it has served him and his band well for nearly 50 years now. Is it heresy to say that secondary vocalist Chas Smash had the better voice? Certainly, I can hear his harmonies to good effect in this one. “Wonderful” sold reasonably rather than exceptionally well but enough for the band to remain a part of our lives ever since releasing a further five studio albums since and being an almost ever present touring outfit. Embrace the madness!

Some anti-London sentiment now according to Jayne Middlemiss who plays up to her North East roots in her intro to “Londinium” by Catatonia by saying “I dirrn’t knaa wot she’s on aboot like” – they could almost be the words in a speech bubble coming from the mouth of Viz’s Sid The Sexist. Anyway, it’s another regional accent that takes over proceedings next as Cerys Matthews leads us through the second single from “Equally Cursed And Blessed” and although it’s not as immediate as their biggest hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage”, it does have some ear worm like qualities that are apparent after a couple of listens. It’s Cerys who you can’t take your eyes off in this performance though as she twists and turns both vocally and physically, bewitching us as she playfully rolls those ‘R’s’ again. Apparently, the band didn’t want “Londinium” released as it could be perceived as negative and wanted “Karaoke Queen” issues instead. That track would become the third single and peaked at No 36 whilst “Londinium” debuted at No 20. Bizarrely though “Karaoke Queen” was not included in the band’s five CD box set “Make Hay Not War – The Blanco Y Negro Years” which brought together their four studio albums when it was released in 2023. Strange glue indeed.

Right, what’s this nonsense? Well, it’s dance nonsense, of course it is and this time it’s delivered to us courtesy of Yolanda (aka DJ Paul Masterson) who took a sample from Liquid Gold’s disco hit “Dance Yourself Dizzy” and turned it into the horrendous mess called “Synths And Strings”. I mean, you can just about hear that No 5 hit from 1980 buried in the mix somewhere but the noise surrounding it is like being slapped across the face constantly. And what was with the staging of this performance with the dancers dressed as toy soldiers? It’s like Trumpton meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and to paraphrase Neil Tennant, literally set to a disco beat. Then there there’s a wobbly screen effect laid over the top of it all presumably to replicate the feeling of being off your head in a club. If I could paraphrase again, channelling my inner Queen of Hearts, “Off with their heads!”

There was a third single off the “Gran Turismo” album? That’s what Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro to The Cardigans and she’s right as they are in the studio to perform “Hanging Around”. I remember “My Favourite Game” and “Erase/Rewind” but this one has escaped my memory banks. As with Catatonia earlier, it wasn’t as striking as those two songs or indeed “Lovefool” but unlike Catatonia, it didn’t stay with me for that long after I’d listened to it. Possibly more of a serviceable album track than a single? I mean, next to Yolanda it was like ambrosia from the gods but compared to their own work, it was more semolina than a rich, rice pudding. Erm…not sure where I’m going with this…so I think I’ll move on. No hanging around for me.

Wait, Dina Carroll was still having hits in 1999? In my head she was all about 1992/93 but here she was at the end of the decade at No 13 with “Without Love”. I have written loads about Dina in past posts on account of all those hits back then so I’m not going to retread her entire career story now but suffice to say that at this point, she was undertaking something of a relaunch some three years after her second album “Only Human”. Dina had suffered health problems in the form of a hereditary bone disease that affected her ears – not good if you’re a singer – which had disrupted the recording of that sophomore collection and also the promotion of it. Despite only releasing two singles from it, her record label Mercury decided that work should begin on her third album. It would never be released and we were left with just two singles that would end up as stand alone tracks – mid tempo ballad “One, Two, Three” which never made it into TOTP despite its chart peak of No 16 and this one, “Without Love”.

A definite throwback to her early dance hits, it could have easily been released in 1993 although it came with lots of different mixes to appeal to the various dance markets. Despite its success, the confident performance by Dina here (her final TOTP appearance) and her new image, it would not be enough to convince Mercury to release that third album. One minor hit single would follow in 2001 (a cover of Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You”) and that was that for Dina’s discography and, unless something changes in the future, her whole musical career.

There was no denying it, Destiny’s Child were fulfilling what many had predicted was their (ahem) destiny by starting to rack up some seriously big hits by this point in their career. After “No, No, No” had been an American No 3 hit and gone Top 5 over here, “Bills, Bills, Bills” (they had a thing for repeated three word titles early on) would give them their first US chart topper and a consolidating No 6 hit in the UK. It wouldn’t be long before we were on exactly the same page as our American counterparts with consecutive No 1 singles in “Independent Women” and “Survivor”. I’m getting ahead of myself though. Back to “Bills, Bills, Bills” and many comparisons were made at the time between it and the recent TLC hit “No Scrubs” both lyrically and sonically. There was a solid reason for this which was that both tracks were co-written and produced by Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs and his then girlfriend and former Xscape singer Kandi Burruss. Both songs took the subject matter of denigrating men that were seen as wasters and ran with it and both even used the same slang insult of a ‘scrub’ in their lyrics. Whilst it’s true both employed a sort of skittering backbeat and distinctive synthesised intros, for me, “Bills, Bills, Bills” had more of an En Vogue feel to it than a TLC one. Still, what do I know? I’m hardly an authority on R&B, all female groups of the 90s. I’m a pop kid from the 80s at heart.

What I do know from watching this performance back though is that the TOTP studio audience didn’t seem to know how to dance to this one at all. There’s some collective shuffling about with one poor girl just stood there at the front of the throng, perhaps paralysed by the thought that any dance moves she attempted would be seen on national TV. Just a few people down the line however, one single girl took the exact opposite approach, seized the moment and went for it with arms and hips swaying in unison. Again, I didn’t know anything much about being a young woman in the late 90s but if I’d been in that audience, I’m pretty sure I’d have been the girl stood motionless.

Ah, who could forget “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin? What’s that? You wish you could forget it? Ouch! Although this No 1 felt like it was a new pop sensation the type of which we hadn’t seen before, we actually had. Gloria Estefan (with and without the Miami Sound Machine) had been having upbeat, Latin flavoured pop hits since 1984. However, it is true that there was a whole legion of super successful Latin artists who had never broken through in the UK like Ricky Martin had managed to do. Sure, he’s had a couple of hits a few years earlier over here but a No 1 record took him to another level (no, not them!). What was it then about “Livin’ La Vida Loca” that enraptured the British record buying public so? Well, the track fair galloped along with a cracking pace which you couldn’t ignore and also had a bit of surf guitar thrown in there which always makes for an engaging sound. Then there was Ricky himself – with his smouldering good looks and gyrating hips he was the perfect vehicle to sell it. And sell it he did with over three quarter of a million physical copies sold in 1999 in the UK alone. It would be the sixth best selling single of the year here.

Ricky Martin’s success could be seen as paving the way for a wave of Latin artists as the new millennium dawned with the likes of Enriquez Iglesias, Shakira, and Christina Aguilera joining him in attaining mainstream chart success without forgetting Jennifer Lopez who was also riding high in the charts at this time*.

*Indeed, it was Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” that replaced “Livin’ La Vida Loca” at the top of the US Billboard chart.

One thing though, Ricky dancing on a podium is giving me strong vibes of Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale that I found myself in one memorable evening out (it’s a long story) which I’m not especially keen to recall.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Steps	Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart	Certainly not
2	Madness	Lovestruck	Nope
3	Catatonia	Londinium	Decent tune but no
4	Yolanda	Synths And Strings	Never
5	The Cardigans	Hanging Around	Negative
6	Dina Carroll	Without Love	I did not
7	Destiny’s Child	Bills, Bills, Bills	Nah
8	Ricky Martin	Livin’ La Vida Loca	No

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002tl5p/top-of-the-pops-23071999